. After doing a bunch of work under the hood of mi '61 Hawk, I fire it up and see that the ammeter is discharging. Everything was fine before. I had the wires removed from the generator and replaced the solenoid. I THINK I got all the wires back where they were. I have good wiring diagrams. After doing a bit of webcrawling I came across some information about a procedure to polarize the generator which is done if necessary after replacing a regulator. Could this be the problem or is it something else. My regulator looks new.
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I think that is what you will need to do.
It has been a long time since I messed with a 12 volt generator, but I am quite sure it would be the same as for a 6 volt unit like mine... It can't hurt to follow the directions in your shop manual for proper polarization. -
You just need to jump a wire between the ARM and BAT terminals on the regulator for one second to polarize the generator.
Hopefully that's all your car needs.Comment
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Thanks for the advise. I guess this ancient knowledge but after 50 years of tinkering on cars I never had to do it before.Comment
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Not to take a cheap shotOriginally posted by Michael J Hawk View Post
...but if "polarizing" cures your problem, you are one lucky guy.
Other possibilities are that a voltage regulator contact has stuck, or VR coil has failed. Your generator brushes could have hung up and lost armature contact. Worst of all...admitting that after 50 years of tinkering, you could've forgotten how the wires were connected when you removed them.
Regardless, once you figure it out, let us know. Oldsters like me need reassurance.
John Clary
Greer, SC
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
SDC member since 1975Comment
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I drove my neighbor's new 1950 Champion home 120 miles for him the other day. About 30 miles from home the generator suddenly quit while we were stuck in stop and go traffic. I removed the generator yesterday and it checks out good, but had a wrong mounting bolt. Later I'll clean the voltage regulator contacts, as I'm pretty sure that's the problem. The car still has original wiring, but it's in good condition.Comment
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Yeah you're right. Oldtimers disease I reckon. I can't even remember where I leave my hearing aid eyeglass cane Viagra etc half the time. Actually I had replaced all the wiring. Whatever I did or didn't do the car stopped charging. I tried polarizing per instruction and that didn't work .so I dropped 80.00 on a new regulator, polarized the gen again and still nothing. I pulled the gen out and tried to get it tested but nobody around here could do it. I'm going to take it apart tomorrow and see if it's anything obvious and clean it. I'm about to point of switching to an alternator anyway.Comment
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I just tested the generator and got it spin like a motor so if that's a valid test I guess it's good. One thing that bothers me though is when I jumped A and B on the regulator to polarize it sparked like a short. Was that supposed to happen?Comment
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It should be like a dead short, but will spark some because if the belt is on it can't spin with the voltage applied. It's probably drawing about 20 amps, but only needs to be polarized for half a second.Originally posted by Michael J Hawk View PostComment
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I have 55 Ford my father bought new in 55 for his mother. I got it after he passed away. Since the car lived in NW Iowa and I live in Kansas City, I wanted to drive it to my house (about 360 miles one way). The 55 had never left a 100 mile radius of its home its entire life. It has about 75000 miles on it. This was 1998 that I did this.
I got in the car and started for KC. About 60 miles away, I stopped at a store. When I came out it would not start. I jump started it and went on my way and decided I would not shut it off the rest of the trip. I got to the KC area and had to stop at the office on my way home, about 12 miles from the house. I left it running, but the GEN light came on just as I left to head home. I drove home the last 12 miles totally on battery power and it was getting dark, so I needed the headlights.
When I got home, I let it cool down and pulled the generator the next day. I figured it probably smoked the brushes or something having been on a long trip. Turns out, the car had a 12V Generator on it! (The car is a 6V) After encountering some relatives later on, I discovered the car had been in an accident in 1975 on the RF corner and they must have had a 12V generator installed at that time. It drove to the grocery store on Sundays by a little old lady for 20 years and no one ever knew the difference.
I found a replacement 6V generator, rebuilt it, and installed it. I had to polarize it (as well as the new 6V voltage regulator) to get it to operate (The voltage regulator came with instructions on how to polarize.) Prior to this, the lights always did weird things like the RF and LR turn signal would flash together, or the front turn signals would light up when stepping on the brake. After the new generator, all the electrical problems went away! You would have thought the 12V generator would have been burning out lights right and left, but it didn't happen!
See the attached instruction sheet on polarization for tractors (works the same on our cars) (It would only let me link it, not attach)
Dis-Use on a Car is Worse Than Mis-Use...
1959 Studebaker Lark VIII 2DHTPComment
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So I put the generator back in (all the while looking at a GM 3-wire I have sitting on my bench and think hmmm) did the polarizing thing again and fired it up. Same thing, ammeter showing discharge. I'm also trying to tune an Edelbrock 1403 I just installed so while I had it running I ran it up to about 3500 sitting in the driveway and suddenly the ammeter jumped into charge mode. Been ok since. Either a gremlin or it just needed to be spun up.Comment
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