'58 mercury medalist, 312. 12v with a generator. voltage reads the same at idle as it does when i rev it up, no change. if i drive it around a bit the voltage drops significantly. when i turn the car off and let it sit for a few hours the voltage will read almost a full charge, and still read it when i turn it on. wtf? battery is new, i had them test it. generator is a working generator as well. i know when i rev it it's supposed to read higher than 12v but it has no change.
Improperly done, the polarizing process can toast a generator, or a regulator. Let's hope that didn't happen. http://www.starautoelectric.com/Technical.htm
the battery will come back up on the voltage a little after discharging but the discharged state causes a lead sulfate or something to form on the plates and it isn't soluble. As it builds up, eventually it will insulate the plates from the solution or as it drops off as a precipitate from vibration it will accumulate under the plates until it rises high enough to short the cell. I have adjusted the regulator before it the windings are good. The old ones you can get into maintain and adjust just like points and have a high and low limit setting
i polarized the VR according to the Ford way. F to B. the battery is a fresh one, i dont think the first part is possible, and i didnt understand your second part?
The first part is possible, and will cause a bridge between the plates killing your battery, ie dead short. The battery is useless after that unless you want to use a little redneckery and drop the battery from about a 3 to 6 inch height and break loose the bridges, don't forget to wear your hazmat suit! I would strap down the acid covers if you choose to try this.Also your contacts are adjustable on your VR.
it takes along time for a battery to get "crusted" from sitting low on voltage. like months. VR- the cover comes off and there are coils with contact points. Use a point file to clean them up and there should be screws. One is a maker that energizes the windings in the generator upon low voltage and the other is a breaker that pulls the points apart when voltage is high. If you can adjust a pressure switch on an air compressor you can figgure out a vr. first vr's had a removable cover held on with screws Then they riveted the covers on and people just bought new ones when they started acting up if your running a modern vr they are solid state...buy a new one, you cant do anything with those.
problem solved. turns out the wire inside for the armature had desoldered and the generator wouldn't motor also. swapped out the generator and rewired everything and now its charging
cool! if you would have had to ajust the vr you need to hook up a voltmeter and watch it. one set of ponts does the low voltage kik in and the other does the high voltage kikout
i just bought the car from alex and unfortunately its doing the same thing. not charging. soooo should i just repeat what you guys suggested to him?
Try taking the voltage regulator cover off. I noticed that when i had the voltmeter hooked up the battery the charging voltage dropped. i dont know if its enough not to cause it charge put i left it off. i completely forgot about it when i put it back on. try that and see if it works.