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Thanks Lando!
If it says AC/DC its probably good.
Something else I was thinking about. Last summer I was helping a friend out with his. After was got things straightened out and charging again I took a voltmeter and measured what voltage we had from Field to ground while it was running and charging. If I remember correctly we saw a little over 4 volts.
Another thing, inside or under your voltage regultor there should be 2 wire wound resistors connected to the Field terminal, one to ground, and the other connected to the Armature terminal. Are they both there and neither one of them burned up? If you disconnect all the wires from your regulator, you should see some resistance (see below) when measuring ohms across the Arm and Field terminals.
Sorry for all this stuff. Its just rattling around in my mind!
EDIT:
Correction;
You should see some continuity with an ohmmeter between the ARM and Field Regulator terminals. If you see an open, that is a problem.
I pulled the regulator off the firewall last night and those two resistors checked out. The other thing I found odd is that both the armature and field wires coming off the generator have continuity to ground. May be normal, but other than the wiring diagram I don't have a lot to go off of.
I pulled the regulator off the firewall last night and those two resistors checked out. The other thing I found odd is that both the armature and field wires coming off the generator have continuity to ground. May be normal, but other than the wiring diagram I don't have a lot to go off of.
The amp clamp is an AEMC model 407 FYI
Thanks
Thank You Landro!
Yes sir, you're correct, with the Regulator disconnected from the generator you will see continuity while measuring for resistances between the generators Armature or Field terminals to ground. In post #11 you tested the Generator by shorting the field connection to the battery connection at the voltage regulator and while monitoring the battery voltage you saw it increase to 8 volts. So that tells me, and maybe only just me as in I could be wrong, that there is a problem with the Voltage Regulator as you took it's regulation part out of the circuit and you took control of it for testing. But then when reconnecting the Field wire back to the Voltage Regulator, it was back to the battery voltage of 6.3 volts instead of around 7.3 volts. I wish there was another good voltage regulator around you could swap in to test with.
About your DC amp clamp meter. Yes, it is good for DC. It's a Nice, nice unit. Here's the link below and if you download the pdf on page 32 it gives directions on how to set it up for DC current measurements.
But you probably already know that.
Good Luck and let us know how you came out on this.
One other thought:
Is it just the light the picture was taken in? These contacts look burnt. If they are that will keep you from getting current to your field windings.
Yes sir, you're correct, with the Regulator disconnected from the generator you will see continuity while measuring for resistances between the generators Armature or Field terminals to ground. In post #11 you tested the Generator by shorting the field connection to the battery connection at the voltage regulator and while monitoring the battery voltage you saw it increase to 8 volts. So that tells me, and maybe only just me as in I could be wrong, that there is a problem with the Voltage Regulator as you took it's regulation part out of the circuit and you took control of it for testing. But then when reconnecting the Field wire back to the Voltage Regulator, it was back to the battery voltage of 6.3 volts instead of around 7.3 volts. I wish there was another good voltage regulator around you could swap in to test with.
About your DC amp clamp meter. Yes, it is good for DC. It's a Nice, nice unit. Here's the link below and if you download the pdf on page 32 it gives directions on how to set it up for DC current measurements.
But you probably already know that.
Good Luck and let us know how you came out on this.
One other thought:
Is it just the light the picture was taken in? These contacts look burnt. If they are that will keep you from getting current to your field windings.
These look burnt. Maybe high resistance here.
Quick follow up. Ran the truck last night and checked the voltage at the three terminals on the regulator around 1500-2000rpm. Battery terminal was battery voltage as expected. Field was 2.2 volts, and the armature was 4.1 volts. The referenced points look burnt from the lighting, but they're all brand new looking.
Quick follow up. Ran the truck last night and checked the voltage at the three terminals on the regulator around 1500-2000rpm. Battery terminal was battery voltage as expected. Field was 2.2 volts, and the armature was 4.1 volts. The referenced points look burnt from the lighting, but they're all brand new looking.
Thanks
Thank you for the follow up! Showing 4.1 volts on your armature and the resulting 2.2 volts at your field terminal tells me your cut out relay, (the one on the right above the BAT terminal) is not closing so it's not connecting the battery to the generator. If it was closed you would see over 6 volts at your armature terminal and somewhere around 4 volts on your field I believe. Why won't it close? Maybe 2 reasons. 1. The generator could be weak and its not generating enough current to pull the cut out relay in. Or #2, The generator is good but
the cut out relay contact return spring has too much tension and the available current can not over come the spring tension to pull the contacts in.
In the post above Brian made some good suggestions about going to the manual and doing a generator output test, and an open field test. Both of these are great indicators of its health and if the generator passes then that will point further towards a voltage regulator issue which I think will bring you to looking into the cut out relay spring tension adjustment.
I wanted to mention too, if you do these tests, on the generator output, it may have you short the Arm and Field terminals together and connect that to the ARM connection of your voltage regulator. IF it fails, and you dont see 35 ish amps at your amp clamp, move the wire connection from the voltage regulator ARM terminal to the Batt terminal and test again. If you now have a good current reading from your generator, you know the voltage regulator is not working properly and maybe its a cut out relay adjustment.
And whenever you have the cover off the voltage regulator, it won't work properly. The cover needs to be on after any adjustment to really see if its right. Has to do with the internal magnetic fields that are developed inside the voltage regulator. Its a lot of take cover off, make adjustment, cover on, rev motor, take a reading, cover off, make an adjustment, cover on, rev motor, take a reading, etc...
