Overheating generator

She hasn't been run a lot in the last year-and-a-half, and was giving me a little sass earlier this year about charging. I suspected a bad ground (thread for the bolt to ground the + cable was goobered up) and fixed that. improved a little and got a better charge, but nothing great.

Been following threads around here lately and went out this afternoon and touched up the points in the regulator. Voila! I thought 8^(

When I fired her up she showed about seven amps aharge at about 3/4 throttle. Went ahead and left her running, just to get her up to temp while I worked on some other things.

When I went to shut her down she was running right along, but showing an 8-10 amp discharge (no lights on), and the generator was VERY hot.

Understanding that a generator's output drops as its components heat up, my thought is there's something amiss in the genny to make it get that hot. A bearing maybe.

Your thoughts?

The more typical genny heating is when the tractors shut down and a stuck closed cutout relay draws heavy current thru the armature and since the belt stops it from free motoring, they get hot.

let us know what you find

John T

Wonderin', too, what you call expensive in terms of the armature.

The work this fella has done for me before has all been what I call more than reasonable, but it sounds like you're talking about rewinding, and I could see where that would cost and hurt.

I ran out of light this evening, but I'll have the belt off first thing in the morning and put an ear to the generator as it turns, before I take it off. And, as below, I'll pull the bamnd and look to see if she got hot enough to sling solder all araound inside.

I do know she got some old hot. It didn't throw heat off like the manifold but, jeezum, she felt just about as hot to the touch when I started investigatin'.

I'll let you know how I make out, and thanks again!

John T

When I first started chasing this down (like fixing the ground connection) I made a point of double checking the connections to the back of the ammeter and ignition button, too, while I could get to them with the battery out.

I made small progress with each session. Thought I had it licked the last time, she charged high for a while, which would have made sense if I'd been running her down, and then settled into a 0-1 amp charge showing on the ammeter. A week later, she was all akimbo again.

Following up on that, today's work, the first time I'd dressed the points in the regulator, got the results I talked about below. 7-8-9 amps charge at 3/4 throtle with the lights off. Wouldn't drop back more than an amp or two during a brief test of turning on the lights, high or dim. Never did settle back down, though, to just a few amps with the lights off.

That's about the pint I saw her dropping off tot he discharge state, and found the genny so hot.

Like I said, I'll roll it over by hand and listen and feel for anything when I take it off, but she's gotta go to the shop. 8^( Will keep ya posted.

The bad ground was there but just not good. I think somebody once tried to wind a coarse-threaded bolt into a fine threaded hole. I wound up tapping her out for the next larger thread. Some vague memory of getting a W-sized drill bit, because it would make for a tighter thread bite in the end than the fractional-size bit.

Point in the end though is that I never lost ground bad enough that it wouldn't run, though the flimsy connection may have stressed the generator as you suggest.

Them electrons run faster than pistons, dontchya know?

Thanks!

;8^)

Haven't noticed any smell, but I'll pull the band off tomorrow and have a looksee before I take it up to him. This has been a persistent problem this summer, so I'm hoping the fact that it charged so well initially today before giving out means that I didn't toast it. (Crossing fingers, here.)

Question. When I took the the generator from my BN up to him, I left the saddle-mount three-stud relay on top of it. Would there be any point in taking the four-point VR along on this trip to the shop?

Thanks, Jim!