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Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?
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ABloch
Posted 2015-07-27 1:11 AM (#485236)
Subject: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Evening everyone,

Swapped out the generator on my recently acquired 1961 Belvedere. Slant six engine so it has the starter solenoid on the fire wall instead of the starter relay common with the V8 cars. I followed the schematics in the FSM for the '60 (generator) to '61 alternator and thought I had it all wired up correctly till I fired it up and darn near pegged the ammeter. I'm going to swap out the voltage regulator and see if that makes a difference but perhaps I am missing something?

50amp alternator with Batt. terminal and two Fields. Field one has gone to field on voltage regulator. Field two has gone to ground at the voltage regulator along with the headlight ground. Battery got spliced to the old Armature wire that feeds into the dash and comes back out to the starter solenoid. I pulled ignition voltage from the ballast resistor on the fire wall for the voltage regulator as in the FSM. Tried to follow the same wiring as the FSM so anyone else after me would be able to tell what was done. Why the excessive voltage?

Andrew

Edited by ABloch 2015-07-27 10:33 AM
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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-27 1:54 AM (#485237 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, excessive amperage. What the?



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Your confusing voltage and amperage, 2 different things

You need to test the voltage with a multi meter, should be around 14V

The amp meter going high might not be a real problem as it might come back down after a little bit of running

When you start the car, the starter will suck a lot of power from the battery, so once the alternator starts charging, it will try to put that power back, making the ammeter read high, after the alternator has done its thing for a bit, the ammeter will start to drift back t the centre position as the alternator wont need to put so much back into the battery

I didnt know the 61 plymouths had an amp meter, I thought they were the same as the 60s and had a red light

If the amp meter is after market, take it out and replace it with a volt meter, much better indication of how your charging system is going and a million times safer

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ABloch
Posted 2015-07-27 12:15 PM (#485267 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Alternator is pumping out 21+ volts and i'm measuring 16-17 volts at the battery. Sorry about the verbage, i used amperage in reference to the amp meter vs. volt meter. Yeah my '61 has an amp meter and everything was there for the alternator swap except the regulator. Hope to try and swap the internals someday to make it a volt meter. Going through all the posts here about doing the conversion didn't address using a standard alternator on a slant 6 car with the starter solenoid. Seem like everyone here went with the GM single wire through their V8 starter relay. So I used the FSM wiring diagram and wired it up as it would have come from the factory. Seemed pretty straight forward but I sure don't want to fry my wiring.

Heading out here pretty soon to get a new voltage regulator and see if that solves the problem. Working on my wife's W123 at the same time and the parts I need are across town.
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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-27 5:18 PM (#485310 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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If your getting 21V out of the alternator, your right, thats just a tad high (sarcasm there )

Regulator is most likely stuffed

Just make sure that your ignition pick up for the regulator is on the key side of the resistor, not the coil side and that
the regulator is properly grounded (wont work if its insulated on nice rubber feet)

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ABloch
Posted 2015-07-27 7:49 PM (#485323 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Check. Grounded.

Picked up an NOS regulator on the way to work today from Old Car Parts NW, who are located just down the street from me. I'll pull the one that's in there and scuff up the paint to make sure I get a good ground. Thanks for the tip on the ignition lead from the ballast. I always double if not triple check before I splice. FSM said the wire from the ignition should be black. However someone decided to spray paint the ENTIRE engine compartment black at some point in its life so everything is black. Knuckleheads.

thanks for your help Mick
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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-27 8:30 PM (#485333 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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I deal with painted wiring a lot

Absolute pain in the donkey

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ABloch
Posted 2015-07-28 1:31 PM (#485430 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Alright then. Total conundrum. New voltage regulator. Separate ground just to be sure and still pumping out WAY too much voltage.

Was I correct in splicing the BATT. and the ARM. together?

According to the diagram the feed from the ATL. goes direct to the dash for power. For the GEN. it goes through the voltage regulator and then to starter solenoid thus back feeding to the dash for power. Made sense to me to just splice them together. Other than that everything else is as the diagram shows.
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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-28 6:26 PM (#485471 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Joining the arm and bat wires is correct

What happens if you unplug the reg?

Basically the voltage is controlled by ignition being supplied to the field winding (rotor) via the regulator that is sensing the vehicle voltage through the ignition wire and the earth connection

Normally, those old style regs are factory set at 14.2 V

I wonder if you have the correct regulator?

There are regulators that switch the earth circuit for field as well

Is the reg electronic?

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58coupe
Posted 2015-07-28 9:15 PM (#485483 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Years ago on a truck I had an alternator that went out of control and the voltage went very high. It burned out most of the bulbs and ruined a 2 way radio. The problem was the main feed wire from the alt. went to the starter sol. and this wire broke so there was no connection between the alt. and the battery. I don't know if this will help.
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ABloch
Posted 2015-07-28 10:37 PM (#485494 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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I pulled the part number from my factory parts manual and it crossed to a VR-101. Not electronic. I had a gentleman from over on the slant six forum suggest that I ground the second field wire directly to the alternator case, which I didn't do. I retained the wire that was the ground from the generator to ground at the voltage regulator and merely attached that to the second field. I will add a ground from that wire to the case and see what happens.

Additionally the battery is good and reading 12.4 volts. Key on, position one, I get battery voltage at the alternator and 1-2 volts less at the VR. Start the car, position two and all hell breaks loose. More tomorrow.......

58coupe, everything helps. This makes me think of adding a fuse after the alternator in case I too get a run away.
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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-28 11:07 PM (#485497 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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A fuse wont help with the bulbs ect, that was from voltage, fuses work on current

A 60 or so amp fuse wont blow with 17 volts ect unless the alternator tries to put out more than 60 amps

Your field wires must be getting + and - otherwise the alternator wont charge at all

If the voltage getting to the battery is somewhere close to whats coming out of the alternator, the battery wire from the alternator to the battery should also be ok

I do wonder about your alternator though, if your field wire that your feeding the positive to is actually a warning light wire, it will put out its own +ve power (to turn the charge light off) and will feed full power into the rotor

If this is the case, the reg needs to work off the earth side

You havnt actually said what type of alternator you have fitted

If you can (bit of a problem at this time) try to put a few pictures up so I can see what you have

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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-28 11:12 PM (#485498 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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Actually, one way to test this theory is to dis connect the wire from the regulator and feed power into the field connection going into the alternator
via a test light, if its on when the engine is not running, then goes out once it is, theres your problem

It means the alternator has exciter diodes inside for a warning light and it requires an earth switching regulator

I am quite confident that this is whats going on

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58coupe
Posted 2015-07-29 10:37 AM (#485540 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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It does sound like you are doing what we call "full fielding" it, providing full battery voltage to the field circuit all the time. This is normally done only for a short time to test alt. output.
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ABloch
Posted 2015-07-29 1:40 PM (#485547 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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All is well in the land of the Belvedere charging system. I will be the first one to admit when I have made a mistake and boy did I make a mistake. Per the suggestion I got over on the slant six site I pulled the NOS voltage regulator to see if the contacts were sticking. Upon reassembly I noticed the sticker affixed to the cover and realized that I had the field and ignition wires swapped. So the alternator is putting out 14.2 and the battery is getting about 13.5 and I am content for now. Next I will upgrade to the HEI ignition and install my stereo, which is why I converted to an alternator system in the first place.

Thank you all for your help and I will be sure to check, double check and even triple check next time.

Andrew
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ttotired
Posted 2015-07-29 6:10 PM (#485570 - in reply to #485236)
Subject: Re: Generator swapped, High Voltage. What the?



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You had it connected backwards (smacks forehead with hand)

we all have our moments

Good its working, that voltage drop is a bit excessive, but will be hard to get rid of and still have your ammeter work

Just so you can see how much difference it would make, run your car with the lights on, pointing to a wall and use a heavy wire (same sort of size as the alternator B+ wire) and go directly from B+ to the battery +ve post and watch the lights

Dont be surprised by the spark

I best say to connect to the battery first or use 2 wires, 1 from the battery and one from the alternator to keep the spark away from the battery and this is also done with all the original wiring connected

NEVER open circuit a working alternator (this includes the old timers test for a charging system of lifting a battery terminal off while the engines running, ok for a generator system, but very bad for an alternator system)

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