Guys, have another strange electrical charge issue. Recently acquired a '55 F100 with the straight 6. Truck was in the process of a rebuild and is very close to roadworthy. All the mechanicals were rebuilt and it runs and drives very well. The issue I am having is that driving the truck actually drains the battery. It currently has an aftermarket wiring harness but I am not sure which brand. I start the truck up and at slow idle, it registers 12.5 volts. I pull the choke and increase the rpm's and the the voltage drops to 12.3 drop the rpms back to normal slow idle and the voltage increases to 12.5 volts. The truck is wired as 12 volt negative ground with a generator running an external regulator. I polarized at the regulator by disconnecting the field terminal and flashing it to the battery terminal on the regulator and I still get the same result. Is it most likely wired wrong between the generator and the regulator? I checked the schematic and it looks correct but I could be wrong. Also, are the starter solenoid side terminals pos/neg specific? Meaning, is the left side negative and the right side postive? Fryguy
Something isn't wired right...even that old generator should put out 13 volts at a fast idle. It looks to me that it has NO output. The solenoid is not pos/neg specific.
I was overthinking the issue. I pulled the generator and bench tested it and it doesn't have any output. Easy one, bad generator. Thanks Retrorod about he solenoid info, I'll tuck that info away to the back of my mind
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