Hey everyone. The ol' Edsel needed fuel and I headed out just after dark with my lights on and my fuel gauge reading empty. First off, it's a 1959 Edsel with a 292 V8, 2 speed Mile-O-Matic transmission and a generator charing system. The voltage regulator and fuel sender are new and are aftermarket. The instrument cluster voltage regulator (Same as on 1959 Fords) is NOS. I noticed that the charging system seems to be grossly undercharging the system with the lights on. During day drives at cruising speed I'm usually hitting 13.8 to 14.2 volts and 12.6 volts at idle while in drive. During this night drive the system struggled to barely keep it at 12.1 volts when cruising and dropped down to 10.8 volts at idle in drive. At stop lights I'm idling at about 600 rpm (10.8 volts) and cruising at about 1200 rpm (12.1 volts) Is there something I can adjust to get the charging system back up to par? On the fuel gauge side of things; It's a 20 gallon tank and only accepted 11 gallon when I filled up. The gauge was reading empty, so that means that my gauge is only reading the tank from roughly 10 gallons and up. Is there anything to troubleshoot here to get my reading the full 20 gallons?
Welcome to the world of generators!! It is normal not to show a charge below 1200 or so with lights/heater/wipers [if elect] with a gennny. It is possiable to increase the charge rate by adjusting the volt-reg but still won't do anything for the lack of low speed output. Back in the day normal deal was to adjust a new VR on the car after you installed it. Read up on adjusting in you Motor's manual befor diving in.
Normal to run a deficit at idle but, should be making enough juice by the time you hit 30 MPH. They made different size generators depending which engine you had, which accessories etc (AC cars got the biggest one). You might check that you have the right one for your car, someone may have swapped one off a six cylinder at one time. There should be a model number on the ID plate on the generator. Could also be a worn generator, they need a rebuild every 30000 to 50000 miles. A local auto electric shop that rebuilds generators and alternators can rebuild your generator properly, usually in less than a day, and cheaper than you can buy a crappy parts store rebuilt. Can't hurt to have them check it out. By the way this is too obvious but did you check that the fan belt is in good shape and properly adjusted? It should not be too loose or too tight, if you press down with your thumb in the middle of the run it should deflect about 3/4 inch under light pressure.
In addition to Rusty's advice to get the most powerful generator available, be sure to use the biggest battery as well...and keep it charged with a battery condition-sensing charger when the car is not in use. My Pop was constantly calling the tow service to come and start his car when I was growing up. He only drove three or four miles to work - often in the dark both ways - and that wasn't enough to keep the battery fully charged. This was especially annoying on winter mornings when the cold Maine temperatures made cranking sooooooo sloooooooow on anything other than a fresh, fully-charged battery.
Have a similar question with 292 Y block and generator system. Installed (recently) is an old school shop quality remanufactured generator coupled with NOS Motorcraft VR. All the cables and grounding straps are new, etc. Battery is an 850 CCA Deka, kept fully charged and on a tender. Am having a new exhaust system installed, and drove it today for the first time in a while, what was different though, was I now have one of those cigar lighter socket voltage monitoring gizmos that INNOVA makes, pretty handy. Had never been able to really monitor voltage accurately* at speed or under load, etc. Seems like the set point of the regulator is a little on the high side. This surprised me a little, because it was always right in there just checking in the garage, spooling it up above idle. Just cruising around 35 with no accessories running, voltage indicated 15.1 at 70F. Turn headlights on and dropped to 14.7, add heater blower on HI about 14.2 or so. So a couple things come to mind - VR adjustments are kind of a PITA and pretty wide iirc, and maybe just driving with the headlights on may be the way to go. Getting the voltage optimized for when no headlights are on or other accessories may not leave much headroom for when everything is on. Should I just leave it the way it is? I'm inclined to, considering cold temps increase the internal resistance of the battery to charging. I did measure current setting of regulator a while back too and it was spot on at 30 amps. * It occurred to me maybe I should perform the same test with analog meter. Maybe generator power is a little "dirty" causing digital meters some trouble accuracy wise.
Does the gas tank sender match the gauge? If so, have you checked to see that the sender moves through its full range of travel between the low (empty) point and high (full) point?
Dave the post for the edsal is last year ... Truck how long after you started the car was the gauge read?? it takes about 10-15 minutes of steady driving ( kick in rpms) for the true reading ( 12.8-13) of the volt meter as the gen is trying to recharge the battery from the starting process draw , it will start high charge then go lower as time goes on ( ussually settling to 12.8 -13.1 ) . the battery tender is only to keep it topped of while its sitting and to keep sulfation down from discharging . it will not keep the gen from making a high current after its started as the gen is replacing the used voltage by the starter . when setting up a VR we run the motor for 10 minutes with all devices off at 1200-1500 rpm to get the battery charged to standing voltage , then check it , then set the regulator per instructions .. as for analog vs digital test gauges , most digital gauges have damnpers to smooth out the waveform and most I found read low not high . analog gauges do the same otherwise the needle goes nuts .
OK. I drove it for maybe 20 minutes with some 65 mph thrown in. It just seems to me 15+ volts is a little hot no matter what, at least for the outside temperatures involved. I spent a lot of time making sure the grounds and connections are good.
Ok, took it for a drive the other night and was concerned that the charging voltage was 15.1 volts even with the headlights on. WTF? So I turned the heater motor on high and that brought it down some to 14.5 or thereabouts. What the hell, I'm thinking. Guess I need to dial it back some at the regulator. But, when in doubt, RTFM, right? Turns out, this is dead nuts where it should be!; if the shop manual can believed. For some reason generator regulator set point is quite a bit higher than alternator.
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