I check the water level once a year, clean the terminals about every 3 years. No battery tender. I live in the HOT So California area, see's 100+ temps all summer. This was a daily driver until about two years ago. Now it mostly sees weekend duty and much of that time is spent in the desert or mountains. I drove it 4 days last week while working on my 57 and the weekend and thats when I started thinking about the battery LOL

 

I don't get a "charge" out of generator issues

 

Oh, I get that. Alternators replaced generators for some very good reasons. Heck, looking at all of the maintenance and adjustments required on the vintage stuff - points, plugs, carbs, brakes, etc it's a wonder anybody actually had time to drive the dang things. Today with new vehicles we're just about to the point of "No User Serviceable Parts Inside".

 

After many years of NO maintanence my son and I recently replaced the starter in his '96 honda accord 4 cyl. I looked everywhere I could think of and never saw a starter anywhere! On my son's insistence, we did what any 20 year old does today. Type it into youtube. There it was, a 27 minute 'how to video'. It was filmed in real time and according to the narrator, not done anything like the outline in the repair manual. A local mechanic said it was a 3 hour job, as the fuel injection, many hoses and cables, coolant lines etc had to be removed for access. We followed the outlaw version online instructions, wrenching blind behind a mass of spaghetti which had been released from it's bracketry and rotating the starter 180 degrees and suddenly it emerged from behind a large coolant hose, ending up in the palm of my son's hand. Elapsed time to R and R was 32 minutes. The mechanic thought I was lying.......

 

Cool story GB! Those who actually do the work will find a way around stupid instructions. "Remove Engine" is not what I want to see as Step 1 for a spark plug replacement.

 

I'll stick with all the maintenance stuff on my vintage stuff which couldn't be any simpler, I find that fun. I don't consider these new "No User Serviceable" computer controlled, pay a dealer MEGA $$$$$$$$$ who might get it right after numerous tries and more $$$$ any fun at all...

 

Agreed. Love modern rigs, but will always own something pre 1970 as well for sure. The cost for labor on some of the new stuff is silly stupid. Ya hafta wonder what percentage of the service bays are filled with BS sensor faults or software problems and nonsense like that.

 

My wife worked 15 years in the service/parts dept for a GMC/Buick dealership. Guess where all the revenue is generated and it isn't from selling new cars LOL.

 

Normally I NEVER work on anything modern. We live pretty much in the middle of nowhere and we do have a napa which is 12 miles away. They had a starter. My son was visiting the island and needed to get back to school on the mainland the next day. I made him do the wrenching because he has young nimble fingers and quite a few years helping me over the years. MY fingers have been chopped up over the years by all manner of woodworking machines, and most have no feeling and look like sausages. My DD is a '94 T-100 I bought for 950. after 5 years it has developed about 4 impossible to see problems, an oil leak, an exhaust leak, a coolant leak and power steering pump leak. It is going into a shop tomorrow and I bet I will have a bill of 2 grand. To me it's a good year end business write off. No way I'm touching it.

 

One of my favorite special tools at times is a calibrated checkbook.

 

LMAO! I've tried to calibrate mine but it seems to be on "0" no matter what I do.

 

Well, my enthusiasm for some stuff has waned over the years for some reason. That and some tasks require specialized tools or are just not practically done as easy without a lift. Some things I've even looked back on and wonder "how the hell did i do that!?" Use it or lose it, mechanic skills are perishable along with everything else.

 

Yeah, so many of the things we used to do under a shade tree now require a lift. Most front drive engines come out the bottom now.

 

And as previously stated.... That's just to R and R the spark plugs.

 

Hey everyone. I'm new to the forum. I've found lots of helpful info here. I thought I would chip in. I just had this same problem on a '59 F100 with a 292 I'm working on. As it turns out, I had the ground and field wires swapped at the alternator. I switched them and everything seems to be working fine now. The alternator I'm using is from a 223 and is now on the 292. To get one of the alternator mounting bolts to go in, I had to flip around the brush hole cover flange. I'm saying this only to say that I'm not sure if there is a different alternator for the V8 and whether or not the field and ground lugs are in different places. On this one, The wire (black w/ white stripe) coming from the middle lug on the voltage regulator (field) goes to the alternator connection to the left, if you're looking down at the alternator from the front of the truck. I'm not a Pro. I'm a tinkerer. I hope this makes sense.