I went again to the generator guy, who put his $4K testing machine on the
battery. It looked normal with engine off, and went bonkers with the engine
on, just like mine. He said, "I have never in my life seen that response." So
he poked around with a jumper and finally got something that looked normal on
his terster when he jumped the negative battery terminal to the engine. It's a
bad ground, embarrassing to admit.
So rather than fuss with the regular engine ground which is frozen, I cleaned
up the firewall ground and added a second battery cable from the firewall to a
transmission bolt in a convenient place. No joy. I assume the transmission
has a gasket, but there are a lot of bolts going through to the engine, plus
the normal engine ground is through the transmission via the slave cylinder.
Back to the generator guy. "Why didn't you attach it to the engine? Are you
just trying to make it look pretty?" (Yes.) "Forget about pretty. Take this
#10 wire and attach it to the starter bolt."
Well, this time I didn't mess around: I got out my big jumpers and attached
one end to the firewall ground and the other end directly to the generator
mount at the water pump. Now I have a direct circuit from the D terminal to
the regulator to the battery to the generator frame. I am still not able to
reproduce what the generator guy found.
It's a Spridget moment. Time for a beer. Maybe two.
Michael Rowe
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spridgets@autox.team.net
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