I have a 63 Falcon that the generator went out on. I replaced the generator and the regulator and it still isn't charging. A friend of mine told me if I disconnect the FLD at the generator and connect a jumper between FLD and the battery + terminal it should start charging which it does. I have swapped out two different generators and regulators now and it is still doing it.


Anyone have any ideas?

 

I also rewired the FLD and GRD from the generator to the regulator to no avail.

 

you have to jump terminals on the voltage regulator to get the generator working properly, but it has been at least 40 years since i messed with a generator car and do not remember how to energize it.

 

I did polarize it but it didn't make a difference. You disconnect the field from the regulator and touch it to the battery terminal.

 

You shouldn't have to polarize a generator changeout unless the brushes and parts inside changed. The instructions always say to do that anytime generator or electrical work is performed though. But if you decide to do this, the shop manual procedure is different. The idea at least on pickups w Y-blocks is to disconnect both the field and the battery wires (with the engine turned off) from the regulator itself and touch those two wires together momentarily, keep the regulator out of the mix. Falcons may be different procedure but I doubt it.

Cleaned out the dust and salt off of everything today in the garage and tried fine tune adjusting the output voltage of a repro script regulator on my F100 as it happens. Yesterday it was seeming to working pretty good seeing voltages in the "charge" level. Yeeha.

Charged up the battery overnight again and let it idle today for about an hour or so while hosing the garage down. It hit 34F with sunshine today.. (Man, I'm ready for Spring!) Anyway regulator (voltage/armature) today acted like no adjustment was possible and battery charging voltage would not rise above 12.3 or so even at 1500 rpm. Wierd. It's never worked real well so have used an outboard charger after infrequent use but would like to nail the regulator adjustment.

Have another rebuilt generator I can try, but I may just replace the regulator, first. Sure is easier. It should be able to keep up better. It will charge up enough to always start but that's about it.

Edit: So I charged up the battery good tonight and went ahead and tried polarizing the whole setup, just because. Darned if it isn't charging again? Will keep an eye on this. Charged battery up again w/ schumacher.

 

I ended up just buying a new bracket to convert it over to an alternator and put a 1 wire voltage reg on it. It took about 30 minutes to install and rewire the idiot light and it immediately started charging wonderfully. I think I'm done with generators for now. It was cheaper to get the alternator mounting bracket, the alternator, and regulator than it was to buy a new generator.