Re: generator

Posted by Gerald J. on October 13, 2004 at 20:14:30 from (67.0.108.87):

In Reply to: Re: generator posted by mike langran on October 13, 2004 at 12:37:31:

Get thee an ammeter. Used to cost just a few bucks for a simple one that indicates by laying along side a charging wire with a different slot for a starter cable. It will allow you to do the tests I described and to detect the current when the tractor isn't running that runs down the battery. Then by checking different circuits you can FIND the current and fix it. We can't find the problem from our computers, we can only suggest the most common of problems.

A generator is a tough piece of machinery. It doesn't break often. The voltage regulator box which includes the cutout relay is fragile and far more often the culprit when the generator doesn't charge right.

If a generator has a problem its most often worn out brushes and then bearings, then the pulley.

There isn't much YOU can do inside the voltage regulator box to make it better. If you dig in, you will probably make it worse.

You might be time and money ahead to take tractor with all the parts on it to an automotive electric shop and ask them to fix it. The local one does that often, though most often they are putting new diodes and bearings in alternators, new brushes, bendix and bearings in starters, and stuff like that.

Otherwise you can shotgun the problem and go buy a new regulator and a rebuilt generator from a car or tractor parts place and hope the problem isn't really a bad crimp lug on a wire.

If it was me (and I had practically that problem three years ago on my JD 4020 with generator) I added a permanent ammeter to the dash (there were spare openings not cut all the way through for the gauges used with a power shift transmission). Then I found the voltage regulator (after I'd cleaned the commutator, put in new brushes and put on a new belt and generator pulley) was sluggish to the point of bouncing the ammeter off the pegs at both ends of the scale. I knew the generator was underrated and that I was having to charge the battery far too often, so instead of spending $43 for a new voltage regulator, I went to the local auto electric shop and they assembled a one wire Delco 10-SI alternator with a small pulley that fit the JD belt width and a bracket so it fit the generator bracket. With that installed I see the charging happening as I've described and I've not had to charge the battery since. Not even after sitting over the winter or for starting with snow on the ground. Its what that charging system needed. I have a collection of JD service bulletins and they offered a kit for that the year after my tractor was made and supplied alternators with tractors having air conditioned cabs. Its not original, but it works far better than the inadequate original 20 amp generator.

I didn't go to the alternator until I proved the regulator was bad. Its not the best diagnostic to say the generator isn't charging and to discard it for an alternator.

Gerald J.

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