Bob,
Did you get any answers to these questions? If you did, I would
appreciate seeing them.
My TD's generator wore out its rear bushing last year. Fortunately, I
caught it before any damage was done to the armature, but the ammeter did
show 20+ amps charge for a minute or two. Generator was rebuilt.
As soon as I started driving the car after the generator rebuild, I
noted that the ammeter would occasionally show 15A at 3000 rpm, when I
knew the battery was charged. Generator guy explained that the few
minutes of generator overcharging because the armature was off center
(bad bushings) could have overloaded the regulator and overheated the
points. Overheating the points anneals the metal, he says, so that they
then tend to stick together afterwards, even though they have been filed
clean.
Could be, I suppose, that that the two events transpired together. I
wonder, though, if the regulator went first and did the damage to the
regulator while, at the same time, the rear bushing was reaching the end
of its life. There was free movement in the armature of the generator,
but no scratching of armature or the field windings.
Lucas doesn't make the regulator anymore--well, they do, but it's
equipped with great knobby screw clamps and quite different in appearance
from the original. I've just limped along, spending as much attention on
the ammeter as on the road, and stopping periodically to file the points.
On Sat, 10 Jul 1999 08:28:38 EDT Mgbbob@aol.com writes:
>Hi Phil,
>Thanks for the reply.
>I've had the cover off the old regulator and cleaned the contacts
>already.
>Also did some voltage checks at both the generator and the regulator.
>At last check, the generator is charging OK.........with the problem
>present.
>This makes sense since the generator was rebuilt a couple of years
>ago.
>Voltage checks at the regulator showed the cut-off coil wasn't cutting
>
>off......had to manually engage the contact.
>I lubricated the contactor and cleaned the points. This worked for a
>while,
>but the poblem resurfaced 2 weeks later......any suggestions after
>polarising?
>Bob
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