The previous owner was trying to resolve a problem of his own creation (buying the 8 volt battery) by creating yet another problem, installing the 12 volt generator. It takes a voltage of 9.5 volts to keep an 8 volt battery charged, so maybe he thought a 12 volt could be adjusted down to a suitable voltage. More likely, the 6V generator would not keep the battery charged, so he installed the 12V setup and really overcharged the battery. I'd suggest going back to the correct system (6V) and adjust the voltage against a fully-charged battery to 7.5 like it's supposed to be. Untold millions of 6 volt charging systems worked right for a lot of years. There's no reason to try to outsmart the engineers who designed the system with Rube Goldberg "fixes".
Jerry
Last edited by Hotrod Lincoln; 04/15/2012 2:44 PM.