The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Great smoking generator

I am looking for a little advice . Heres the tale, I Have a 52 3600 with 62 235 that has been converted to 12v by the PO , I just got the fuel system straightend out (bad gas tank ) I bought a new battery and moved it back to it,s home under the cab (it had been on the firewall under the hood, however the fender to firewall support brace had been removed). I fired up the truck and it ran great , I let it idle for about 15 min then shut it off and congralated myself on a job well done. about 5 min later I was under the truck checking my fuel line connections a smelled a funny smell , looked around a bit , then opened the hood . to my suprise the generator was smoking and very hot , the ignition switch was completly off, I disconneded the battery and it stoped smoking and cooled down. the question is why ? and where should I look first? . pics of the truck are in the gallery under new guys , thanks Brice

stuck relay on the voltage regulator.
cost about $50 on the various suppliers.
tony

old_blue is dead right. I wouldn't monkey around trying to fix the regulator. Just replace it.

bikeman,

This is how I read your post; The generator worked great. You decided the move the battery, which you did, then worked on the fuel system. After this was accomplished, you fired the truck up, for the first time "post battery relocation" and the generator got hot. Did you look at the amp gauge? Was this a new, charged battery from your local auto store?

I would think Mr. Generator was merely doing what it was told...it was charging like hell and go real hot in the process. Of course the regulator is suppose to monitor this, and shut it off when full battery voltage has been reached. It would be easy to replace the regulator, but without at least checking the charging voltage, you might want to buy a box of " them regullaters".

Maybe Mr. Regulator couldn't see what the battery was doing so it didn't shut down the generator. My point is, don't just replace some component with knowing why your doing it..test the system for basic operation first.

Stuart.

atomarc, couldn't agree with you more; don't replace parts till you know what's wrong.
his problem sounds like exactly what happened to me. my regulator stuck and i could take the top off and see the points stuck. this keeps feeding battery back through the generator making a motor out of it when it's not generating it's own juice; i.e. the motor is stopped. you won't ordinarily know that the generator is trying to spin because the fan belt won't let it spin, it'll just sit there and get hot. in my case, my belt was loose and my generator actually spun like a motor when the motor was stopped and key off due to the stuck regulator.

bikeman, hope you fix the problem before the generator burns up. that'll be another $50 or so if that happens. good luck.
tony

Ha, you guys are dead right about the regulater, it had a little melt down , also I discovered a lack of fuses in the proper spots ,I suspect they got left them out in the 12 volt conversion 20 years ago . when I moved the battery , I used the original negitive ground connection that was there and I will bet that it dosn't have a nice clean contact to the frame , that may play a part in the melt down of mr regulater. anyway the cost of a regulater is close to a alternater so I may just switch it over. thanks Brice

bikeman,

Everyone appreciates it when we hear the results of our guesses and YOUR hard work. Drive it and enjoy it.


Stuart.

bikeman, yes, you can switch it over. there's pros and cons to doing this, besides loosing the originality of the generator/regulator setup. 1. alternators charge even during idling and generators don't.
2. generators can charge a dead battery but an alternator can't; needs some juice to make a hot field to start the production of charge.
i like my generator / regulator combo, but that's just my preference.
glad you got it figured out. now, as atomarc says, drive it.
tony

bikeman,

In 1970, I bought a JC Whitney generator and voltage regulator for my 1948 Chevy 1/2 ton Panel Truck. After installing the parts and seeing the ammeter read "Charge", about 6 friends and I took off for a 200 mile ride to the beach. At about 11 pm at night, about 50 miles from the beach, the lights got real bright and then quite dim. The regulator stuck and the generator got so hot that it melted all soldered parts. I'm glad you have avoided a melt-down.

By the way, the Shop Manual suggests that you should always polarize the regulator/generator system when installing a new/rebuilt generator (and/or after the battery has been disconnected for a long period). Using any jumper lead, momentarily touch it to the Battery & Generator leads on the voltage regulator (after all parts have been installed and all leads, including battery cables, have been connected). You will see a little spark at the jumper lead. This procedure is not alway necessary but it is easy to do and will not hurt anything.

If the generator is not polarized, it will try to run backwards when you turn the engine off (and it would run down the battery).

Tim

I guess I've never treated my regulator with proper respect. In the future I will call it 'Mr Regulator'. Please accept my apologies.

I am sure Mr Regulator gets called all sorts of other names when he dosn't play well with Mr Generator, it's hard to get any respect anymore when you have been merged with Mr Alternator.

tc, i'm glad you pointed out the polarization procedure. i believe the concoction won't even charge unless there's a little bit of stored charge in the generator fields which is accomplished by doing the procedure you described. i know mine didn't when i replace both generator and regulator until i polarized them.
tony