The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay No lights, nada??????????

Coming to work this morning and noticed my amp gauge was going to the left a bit and the head lights were dulling out. Got to the parking lot and everything went out, amp gauge big time discharged? You Bolters all know my next question, your right what is my problem or where do I start, the fan belt is on and tight...᠁.

Start with making sure you have a fully charged battery. Then, check your generator/alternator output.

Sounds like you may have a short, leading to the circuit breaker as part of the headlight switch to cut out. That circuit breaker is a bi-metallic strip, so once it cools down, continuity is restored. See if you have lights now. If you do, you will need to find the short or it will happen again.
Kent

Ditto, Ditto .............although you didn't say motor won't start or starter drags?????? So if all that is OK, Ditto to Kent.

Are you running a generator? It could be as simple as dirty brush holders preventing the brushes from reaching the commutator on the armature. As the brushes wear, the springs continuously push the brushes down against the commutator. Dirt will prevent this. I have remove the brush cover strap and reached in ad pulled back on the springs and let them snap back down, dislodging the dirt. The generator continued to do its job forever after that.

And of course the battery posts and clamps may need a good shine.

And, maybe ground straps connection points might need a good shine.
There are at least two ground cables/straps that attach to the frame.

And, since light fixture wiring did not include a ground wire for each bulb/fixture, the grounding was provided through the frame and sheet metal (and light/bulb housings). These "connections" might not be clean/rusted/uncorroded.

"ground continuity" is also affected by new paint in areas where sheet-metal parts and bulb-housings are screwed-on/attached.

You can test these ground by making grounding wires that have clips on the ends. Clip a wire to a clean ground-strap and to the lamp housing.

Well I HAVE BEEN DOING A LITTLE TROUBLE SHOOTING HERE ON THE PROBLEM AND CHECKED OUT THE LIGHT SWITCH WITH ANOTHER ONE SAME THING, LIGHTS GO OUT AFTER A WHILE. I NOTICED THOUGH AS I JUMP IN THE TRUCK AND HIT THE BRAKE THE AMP GAUGE DOES NOTHING, IT USED TO INDICATE A SMALL DISCHARGE AS I REMEMBER, ALSO WHEN I CHECK THE VOLTAGE REGULATER WITH A VOLT METER I CHECK THE BAT. TERMINAL WITH THE TRUCK ON OR OFF AND IT DOES NOT SHOW ANY D.C. VOLTAGE, SO AT LEAST IS TELLING ME I HAVE SOMETHING NOT INDICATING VOLTAGE. TRUTHFULLY I AM NOT AN OHMS LAW ENGINEER WHEN COMES TO THIS HERE SUBJECT. OUNDS LIKE I NEED A BAIL OUT HERE...᠁᠁...THANK YOU FOR ALL THE GOOD ADVISE. THE BATTERY IS FULLY CHARGED, AND ONE GROUND FROM THE STARTER TO THE FIREWALL IS ALL I HAVE EVER USED WITH NO PROBLEMS...᠁.

Turn your caps lock off please!

Ol'55, I see you are an aircraft mechanic, so you are no slouch. Don't mean to talk down to you, just normal procedure for everyone.
1. Was the battery "fully charged" by using a battery charger or when you tested it, it was charged already?
2. How is the motor grounded?
3. How is the frame grounded?

Did you take off the battery cables and clean posts and cable clamp ID's yet?
After you clean them:
Check battery at rest, MM probes to pos and neg battery posts. Should be about 12V-12.6V. Start motor and at high idle, 1200 RPM, should read 13+V, and go up as RPM increases. Report.

Before continuing further, we MUST establish a baseline. Have to be SURE battery is good. Have to be SURE that charging system is working. The above simple checks will determine that. Keep in mind batteries can be charged up and look good, but they die under the first or second load. Happens ALL the time. So it would be good practice to have it load tested by a "professional" kid at the FLAPS. This would be your no. 1 priority next step.

Your answers and your test reports are all we have to be able to advise further tests. A little at a time.

MM= Multimeter

Attached is a wiring diagram of a typical charging circuit of your era truck. If you are checking and seeing no voltage at the voltage regulator Bat. terminal, there are a few possibilities:
1. Battery is depleted
2. Ammeter is open
3. Loose wire in that run(s)
4. Your multimeter is defective or you are not using a good ground on the negative lead.
If any of the items, 1-3 are true, it may explain why the lights work temporarily (charged battery provides power but gets depleted because it is not being charged).

don

Sorry about the Cap. locks on I do need to check the battery connections grounds so on and so forth. The battery is 3 years old, now you have mentioned the ammeter being open? How would I check that? I really don't know what I would do without Bolters out there with all the help you have provided me. Even though I am an aircraft Mechanic, me an electronics was never my can of Beer. So as long as you fellahs don't mind me asking a question or 2, I'll keep it to a minimum...᠁The engine runs real goods starts right up, no problem anyway this here weekend I'll look into it a little closer...Thanks

Ammeter: possibly loose connections or open wire (to or from).
don

Well you are getting ahead of things. I think it's best to start with basics. Doing things and testing things before we have a good battery and cursory charging tests, causes a big blogging mess. So test and report.

To answer your question, you would bypass the ammeter by putting all the ammeter wires on one post. I'm not recommending that yet. Sometimes if you do a bunch of stuff at the same time you never figure out what was wrong. What you do is up to you. If you happen to find something wrong with battery or charging system, you want to be able to watch the ammeter.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to get a good experienced person to check the battery before moving on OR put in another battery from a donor.

If you don't answer my questions that I asked, I can't help you. Go back and read.

On this here past Sunday, I got out my Mult. Meter and noticed no power to the light switch. Looking up under the dash board and discovered the wire going to the + side of the ammeter was barely on. Cleaned it up a bit reinstalled it and now my truck is running with all the lights etc. etc. The only problem I still have is with the headlights on going to work in the cooler weather the ammeter discharges for about 3-5 minutes and as the truck warms up it will go back to charging, this never happens in the summer warmer weather. The Battery stays around 12.8 volts. Possibly going to an alternater in the near future.

Good news.

I hope you know that the battery should be disconnected any time you are working on the electrical system (other than troubleshooting). I fried an ammeter once just poking around behind my dash with a wrench working on something else.