I have been at odds with my regulator for many years. Recently - after a lot of detailed instruction from Jerry - it has been behaving fairly well. I have adjusted all the voltages pretty close to specs, but still when I have been running with lights the cutout relay has not been releasing if I shut off the motor immediately after shutting down the lights.
So 2 days ago I adjusted everything yet again, and again it was working just great until I turned the lights on. So just for giggles, I checked all those voltages with the lights going. Shouldn't a regulator in good trim give the same readings with or without lights? As long as the gen is producing enough? Anyway, in reality those carefully adjusted voltages were all over the map. What really goosed me was that the output voltage from the generator (measured at the middle post on the reg) could be as high as 8 but the bat voltage was well under the 7.3 volts that I measured without the lights.
What I could also see was that the single-contact cutout relay on my newer regulator gets pretty warm when the lights are on.
So I says to myself, why not clean up the old reg, readjust according to the shop manual including the air gaps, and drop it back in again? And so I did. Among other things I noticed that the older model had a double relay on the cutout relay, which tells me that it won't heat up so much. The short version is that after a good bit of tweaking the old regulator is back in place and feeling fine.
My greatest concern is that I do not have a good enough ammeter to adjust the current relay. I have been setting the voltages well enough, and then playing with the current relay so that it shows a slight charge at the dashboard even with the lights on. The problem is that without the lights the dashboard "ammeter" shows a strong charge. I should think that when the current relay is adjusted to work properly without the lights it should not change with the lights on, provided the rpms allow the gen to produce.
FYI 7 years ago I replaced the regulator after leaving both the reg and the gen to the local auto-electric shop. I suspect they checked the generator, saw it was good, and concluded that the reg must be the problem, and told me to replace it.
If there is a question here, I suppose it is whether the voltage (and current) settings after the regulator shouldn't be the same with or without the lights burning.
Karl
