So I just tried starting her and she tried to turnover and then I got nothing. Generator light came on but that's all I noticed. Lights and wipers are working. Starter maybe? I'm not sure... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Basic Mechanics 101: Check ALL wire connections. Seriously though, corrosion under electric connections over time gets worse if not cleaned good.
what do you mean by starter/generator? unless you have serious short I dont ever recall seeing both with bad battery connection or bad ground.
Well I finally had a chance to get back at it. It was the generator that was smoking a bit the last time I tried to start her and the regulator was hot to the touch. I'm swapping out the solenoid, ignition coil, regulator, plugs, and wires today and I'll see where that gets me.
Before you start throwing parts at it, go over all of your grounds. Take the negative terminal off your battery first, you have to be a little more careful with generators than alternators as they have a one-way polarity. Clean up all the battery cable ends and where they attach to, wire brush the **** out of them is usually good enough. Look up under the battery cable insulation, if it seems to be green, replace them. Check your firewall to engine ground strap, there is also one between the VR and radiator support. Replacing the solenoid is real cheap insurance, if the old one is still good, it makes for a good spare. Bob
I agree with Bob,bad grounds can cause all kinds of problems,especially if the car has sat for a long period.Just because the wire/cables are attached does not prove anything,take the ground connections off,clean them and the surface they attach to.Also,how old is the gas,has it turned to **** and killed the carburator and fuel pump? ROY.
Grounds are crutial. Had a race car one time that I forgot to ground the motor to frame. It tried to ground itself through the temp gauge lead. You know...that little springy looking thing that goes in the intake....lol. That thing glowed cherry red almost instantly when i tried to start the car after a rebuild. Check your grounds.
If you've got smoke from the generator and regulator, it might be too late for them. Gen. might make it, but any smoke from the regulator means it's toast. I'd still pull both of them and take them to a test facility and have them checked before giving it another try. If either is shorted, they both are bad, and it will make all the ground checking and charging a futile effort.
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