Coming home from a Memorial Day parade today in my 32 I'm doing 70 mph, look down and see my volt meter pegged high. Within seconds my voltage regulator starts making noise like a Mickey Mantle baseball card in your bicycle spokes (noise frequency changed with rpm's). Pulled over when I could and shut the car down with smoke coming out the back of my Delco Genny, it was hotter than hell. Smoked for about 30 seconds after shutdown. Regulator was not hot, battery not hot. Turned my battery disconnect switch off and stood by with my extinguisher just in case. No fire thankfully. Flatbed got me and the old girl home. What the heck could have happened, and what was the noise out of my Regulator??? NOTE: I installed the Delco 32A Genny and Regulator 18 years ago with no issues since. Not sure if water on battery was from today or my annual car wash a week ago. Sometimes water gets in battery box. Pics below. Thanks in advance.
I had that happen on a 60 Merc I had. Generator smoking like crazy! Disconnected battery and let it sit overnight. Next morning I hooked battery beck up and drove to work. Gen was real hot again. Damned regulator was stuck. Contacts welded together. Put a new regulator on an never had generator problem and it worked fine.
Yes I have been running the Pertronix II for well over a decade. The motor was running great even when I shut it down. What could the ignition have to do with the charging system???
No diodes or triodes in that regulator. Just three coils and some contact points. I'd pop the cover off the regulator to see if the points look burned or stuck. Then I'd pull the generator off and pull it apart and see how bad the damage is. Check to see if it is throwing solder from the commutator end of the armature or if there hopefully is just a fried wire. At least that generator isn't rare nor expensive like some are.
Not that it might have caused the problem, but please tell me you have terminals on the ends of those wires at your regulator.
I don’t think thats water on the battery. Could be battery acid from over charging. You could lick it to make sure lol.
I noticed that too when I took this pic. No terminals. This car was my first build long time ago. As I find these kinds of things I correct them. No doubt I have to remove this regulator and ring terminals will go in. Thanks.
Yeah you are probably right because I did notice the moisture fogging around the battery fill covers. Thanks. And thanks for the laugh too.
This is exactly what I'm going to do this week. I am very familiar with electric motors as I wind armatures as a side gig. I'm really concerned about the genny because of the smoke it was emitting. Thanks much.
That's a Delco generator so to get it to charge you need to ground the field wire. If voltage took off you either have one of the regulator points stuck closed or a short to ground in the field wire. As long as the armature didn't throw any solder, and the commutater isn't burned, the generator should be okay. The heat was caused by the high current flow through the armature so any damage would be in the armature and brush circuits.
Check your commutator for signs of wear. If the copper sits below the mica, it will need undercutting. The brushes riding on the mica will give a chattering in the regulator.
Thanks everyone for all your thoughts, advice, and ball bustin'. I looked inside the three contact regulator and found the voltage and current contacts were as clean as new. The Cutout contact had a tiny arc weld tit on one side and a corresponding pit on the other side with no burning. All the core wirings looked fine and intact with no burning. My continuity checks showed no breaks in any of the coil wires. Water on battery was indeed battery acid...tasted terrible...just kidding. Battery tested good with no damage. The genny on the other hand did smoke when the failure occurred, and when I removed the armature I found some windings that started to burn at the commutator contacts, and some solder slinging. Sealed bearings were ok. See pics below. So the genny and the regulator are in the shop for inspection, rebuild, and tuning. Today I'm going to do some end to end wire continuity checks, and wire to ground checks on all the charging circuit wiring... and get some ring terminals on my regulator wires.
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