51 ford with 6v, pos. ground charging system. first real time driving the car. went to test the brakes and put air in the tires and get gas. after pumping gas (with car off) i went to start the car and the battery was dead, just a solenoid click but no turning. car wouldn't bump start either. walked battery home charged reinstalled, car started right up and drove home fine. today i started the car, put on the headlights and put a meter on the batt., it never dropped below 6.2v, started it a while later same test, ran it for a good five minutes, never below 6.2v. what happened yesterday? if i ran the car longer would it die again? where do i test for gen. output? what about whether the regulator is good?
when i pulled the batt. out of the car to take it home and charge it i needed a wrench to loosen the clamps on the terminals, everything was tight.
Tight doesn't always mean GOOD. (Uhh...wait a minute... ) Seriously, it does sound like you had a bad connection there. A little bit of "No-Oxide" or similar stuff on the connections will promote a good connection and keep it in good shape.
With intermit...inturmitt.. inconsistent problems like that you'll never know. The bad battery connection sounds probable. Do you have an ammeter on it? If not you should stick one on it and just wait until you see it discharging and spend some time tracking down the problem while it's evident.
i honestly feel that the connection to the batt. was good, the cables and terminals are brand new and clean, (batt. is only two weeks old). i do not have an ammeter gauge installed yet (searching swaps for some descent SW's), but i did have an inductive pickup ammeter that i borrowed from my boss. it is mechanical and about fifty years old and he promised me that it worked. i put it on the yellow lead off the generator to the regulator and it showed zero. then i put it on the other two leads off the regulator and saw nothing. (probably the gauge). with a multimeter what are good tests to run? i think that it is a 35 amp system if that gives any ideas on what numbers i should see.
6 volt batteries are 3 cell units, and as such need to have 2.2 volts to each cell for a total of 6.6 volts just to maintain. That does not mean charging,, just to maintain the battery at par.. if you were seeing 6.2 at the battery with the engine running, and it didnt come up from there, i would check all connections, both at the battery and all ground straps, to frame and engine, take em off and clean em up.. on a 6 volt system it is imperative to have everything working correctly,, any voltage drops in the system will mean a poorly charged battery or in your case insufficient voltage to even get a charge. bob
With it running you should see at least 7 volts.My 6 volt 51F-1 puts out 7 to 7.5 at high idle.This is from my owners manual.Disconnect the field wire from field terminalof the regulator and conect it to the ARM terminal Start the engine watch charge indicator as speed is increased if gen charge does not increas gen bad if charge increas as speeded up reg is bad. Also make sure the sheat metal screws that hold reg to firewall are tight for good reg ground. James
another common cause of your problem is the ground strap to frame. On 6v ALL connections MUST be clean and tight. Examine very closely and Clean again. A NEW bat and bat clamps are shiny and new but still need to be cleaned to get rid of oxidation. Use No-Ox. This is valid advice
A generator requires a residual magnetic field in the windings in order to work. If the genny has sat a long time or has been taken apart then it needs to be "recharged". This is called repolarizing. You do that on a Fomoco generator by lifting the FIELD wire off the regulator and MOMENTARILY touching it to the BATTERY terminal. The procedure for Delco and Autolite is different. Also, the regulator is grounded with sheet metal screws thru its mounting frame. Remove it and completely clean both its base and the car metal. Use new hardware if possible. I would also clean the regulator contacts. Leave the cover off and look for the cut out solenoid (right most solenoid with the terminals facing you, AKA Field) to pull in as the rpms are increased. At idle the battery will read 6.2-6.6 depending on level of charge. Until the cut out pulls in you will never see a charging voltage which as mentioned is around 7.2 volts. Let me know the results.
buy an optima 6v it is pricey but worth it. keep the commutator? copper clean. don't put too much oil in the oil cap, cause it will varnish the brush/comm copper. tp aka zibo
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