I have read many of the pros and cons concerning this conversion and decided to try it on my '53 GMC. A local shop has done several conversions on older cars (20's and 30's) and has had no problems with the installation, put in the battery and had no issues with the voltage regulator. I am having starting problems. If the starter gear is in line with the flywheel gear there are no problems. When not, I have to manually nudge the crank to get them in alignment to get the starter to engage. With the 8v battery the starter engaged every time. I did notice that the ammeter needle was on the discharge side of the gauge and never changed. I expected that after several starts and stops the battery would start charging but never did and soon went dead, so the ammeter reading was correct. Re-charging the battery with my battery charger did not correct the problem even though the charger indicated the charge was at 100% and 8.1 colts. The local shop is charging it now so will see if theirs is a better charger.
My inquiry is whether anyone who has done the conversion had to adjust the voltage regulator. I have read Jerry's thread on his opinion that this conversion should not be done butt also provided the procedure for adjustment of the VR. I re-installed the 6v Optima battery and the ammeter showed it was charging as normal, once the engine started. Could be that the Optima battery is the problem.
