I happen to be the new owner of a 49 CD wagon. Thecharging system did work, only I had to rev up the engine pretty high to do so. It won't charge at idle at all. Is there some kind of adjustment I could make to the regulator to make the charging system more efficient?
Generating systems did not really start charging till above idle, main reason alternators replaced them.
They will not charge the battery at idle. Generators need to rev at higher RPMs. This is one of the main reasons we use alternators in modern cars. When you are actually "driving" your Crosley you should be charging the battery sufficiently, but not if you just idle. It's also a good idea to use a trickle charger when your Crosley is just setting around, waiting to be driven.
Sam is right on the money, but he probably should have said use a battery trickle charger with an automatic shut off. These chargers keep the battery maintained, and at the same time keep the battery from boiling over from overcharging.
I am getting ready to put in a new wiring harness in my 47' wagon. The question is, will I have to re-polarize my regulator once I take out the battery and all of the old wiring?
Yes
As Dean says, yes it is advisable to re-polarize the generator anytime something is being done to the charging system. It's so easy, why not do it and eliminate one potential problem?
As a suggestion, make very sure that the voltage regulator is well grounded to the firewall. If it is not, you will have a charging problem that can be intermittent and sometimes very hard to diagnose. I've been through that with a lot of customers.
As a side note, the generator also has to have a good ground to the engine. This is normally no problem, but I had one customer that had a serious problem that none of the "usual" cures would take care of. The short story is, I had him take separate jumper wires for all of his connections and grounds, when he grounded the generator it all worked.
The reason, he had POWDER COATED the generator bracket, and it was insulating the generator from the engine!
How do you polarize the generator/ voltage regulator?
For best results, follow these instructions EXACTLY!
Use a piece of # 12 or # 10 gauge wire (no lighter) approximately 8 to 10 inches long. Have everything hooked up; REMEMBER the ground cable goes to the POSITIVE battery terminal (these instructions are for the original Crosley 6-volt positive ground system only).
With the engine NOT running and the ignition key off, hold one end of your jumper wire tightly to the Regulator terminal marked BAT, and then momentarily touch the other end of your jumper wire to the Regulator terminal marked ARM (NO MORE THAN 2 SECONDS). You will probably see a spark, THIS IS NORMAL. You can repeat this, and may or may not see a spark this time, if you do it may be much smaller.
WARNING: DO NOT touch the Regulator terminal marked FLD or any other metal part with your jumper wire, DAMAGE or INJURY could OCCUR!
NEVER, NEVER PUT HOT TO THE FIELD TERMINAL!!!! just jump the battery terminal, to the armature terminal for a split second. That's it. If you put hot to the field, there goes the small field wire POOF, and out comes the smoke, and as of yet I have not found how to put the smoke back into the fields, and make them work again. Some of the older Crosleys have 3 brush generators with just a cutout relay, it is easier to just jump the battery terminal on the cutout relay to the armature to polarize. It does not matter what generator you have, just jump the battery, and armature terminal momentarily.
Could someone please tell me on the Crosley generator which terminal is the field terminal and which is the armature terminal. My generators all have two posts one towards the fan and one towards the water pump. I just replaced my voltage regulator and want to be sure I connected the wires properly.
The forward post (smaller stud) is the field post. The rearward post (larger stud) is the armature post. The voltage regulator is marked on the tabs that the wires hook to. You might have to remove the screws from the voltage regulator tabs to see the letters that are marked on the tabs.
I am now ready to test the generator for output. How do I go about checking to see if the generator is working. I have a digital Voltmeter.
The basic charge/no charge test is rather easy.
With the engine and all lights and accessories off, measure the battery voltage (at the battery).
Start the car, and measure the voltage again with the engine running above charging speed (2500 r.p.m. or so should bring you up to about maximum output).
The running voltage should be above the engine off voltage, the difference will be dependent on the state of the battery charge.
Turn on the headlights and all accessories (if you have any) and monitor the voltage to see if it stays above the off voltage , again at speed, (generators have minimal output if any at idle, this is one of the big advantages of alternators). With a fully charged battery and the engine running at speed, but no other draw, you should see about 7.25 to 7.5 volts. Above 7.75 volts will be hard on battery life.
mcriverbug Apr 23, 2002
Jim_Bollman Apr 23, 2002
mcriverbug Apr 24, 2002
crosley19 Apr 24, 2002
Jim_Bollman Apr 24, 2002
In the process of replacing my generator and voltage regulator, I seem to have confused the armature and field wires. For these 2 short wires that connect directly between the generator and voltage regulator, one appears to be a much heavier gage and the other one is fairly small. Can anyone tell me for sure whether the heavy wire goes on the armature or the field terminals?
The heavy wire goes to the arm terminal of the regulator, and the thinner one goes to the field terminal. Make sure that the wires are hooked up correctly on the generator first. The heavy wire must go to the arm terminal on the generator.
I am rebuilding my 49 station wagon. I have a couple of questions. Do I take the bottom two bolts off under the generator to remove it. I read the book where it saids to take the band off not the bracket from the engine. Since there is no adjustments do I just roll the fan belt off. I need to clean it up and paint it and don't want to screw something up.
I recently went through the same thing with the engine for my 49 Pickup. Just remove the two nuts that hold the generator band tight. Once these are loosened you can remove the generator. Remember the generator shaft runs the water pump also, so remove the water pump coupler before loosening generator.
First the adjustment for the belt is the fan blade mounting bolts. One bolts is the pivot, and the other is slotted. There are two nuts on the top of the generator band they are just under the fuel pump, and intake manifold.
The generator belt is slackened by loosening and lowering the fan, which has a slotted mounting hole arrangement.