I have been having trouble getting 12 volts out of my generator. I had the local shop overhaul it and they said it was good. But when I went to install it on my School bus It only made 3 volts. I took it back and they insisted that it was still good, and they wanted my regulator so they could test it. According to them the regulator is bad. No problem, since it was the old one that I had replaced when I originally found the generator not charging. So why did it not charge when hooked up to the new one? I checked all wires for continuity, and polarised it each time I installed it. And of course I traced out the internal wiring, just to be sure the connections were labeled right on the gen.
Finally I'd had enough. I pulled the gen off of my '54 buick special, hooked it up, polarised it, and voila... charging.
I checked the specs on the '54 biuck gen, and it sats the field coils are EXTERNALLY grounded. I saw with my own eyes that the gen on my bus has internally grounded field coils. So that is my problem. My '54 motors manual says that fords from that time period use internally grounded field coils. So I'm going to assume that over the years somebody just tossed a ford generator and regulator in it and called it a day.
My guess is that somebody came along after that and replaced the ford regulator, with a chevy regulator, and that's why it never worked for me.
My question is this... Did the high amp generators that came in school busses in 1959 come with internally, or externally grounded field coils?
thanks in advance
-kevin
