Battery & Gen. testing

[Philby]

Hi All,

I’m after a bit of guidance on how to test my electrical system mainly around the generator.  

The current battery has an unknown history but doesn’t fully charge and I need to jump the car more often than not, so I think it’s stuffed.  I’ll replace it as soon as I’ve done some tinkering around to find out whether or not I have a generator/wiring issue.

Basically I’m wondering what to do once I get one of those voltometer thingy’s?  I’m no electrician but willing to learn.  

I don’t want to do any major stuff, just see if the correct current is running in/our of the generator to the battery and maybe check other small things.

Cheers,

Phil

[Maco]

Hi Phil,

All the info you require is in the workshop manual.

Cheers
John

[Philby]

Cheers John,

I was hoping to hear from anyone with hints, tips, shortcuts, or as the trusty sales assistant at a big auto shop franchise suggested, “just take it to an auto electrician”.

Often the info the guys here give is better explained and much more helpful than the workshop manual.  Worst comes to worst, I’ll take the manual, thick rubber gloves and the voltometer thingy, and see how I go.

Cheers again,

Phil

[RET]

If your battery won't fully charge even from mains power (ie on a charger), it's a fair indication it is past its prime.  You'd be wasting your time and money getting the generator checked out until you'd eliminated the battery as the culprit.

It's well worth having a look at the Workshop Manual, it does cover in a lot of detail how to test the electrical system, with specifics for both Lucas and Bosch.  But it is one of those areas where you're either confident with it or you're not.

This doesn't directly answer your question, but for what it's worth the FE in my icon at left is on club rego and gets used once or twice a month.  I used to find that after a lengthy period idle, it would often struggle to start.  I've got into the habit of just disconnecting the -ve lead from the battery when I get home from a club run.  The clamp is adjusted to fit down with a slight turn (no tools required) and it's never fallen off.

Of course, if you've got a stereo with electronic preset radio stations and the like you won't want to do this.  But at least you can be confident the battery isn't getting drained by an earth leak while the car is idle.

Hope that's some help.

cheers
RET

[FB_MAD]

Hi Phil.
Before you get one of them "volt thingies" as you say, try this.

Without getting into technical mumbo jumbo there is an old "bushies" way of testing whether your generator is in some sort of working condition.

Pull it out and on the bench.Connect a battery to it.If its in any working condition the generator will spin like an electric motor (which it sorta is) however it won't turn very fast as its not designed to work as an electric motor as such.

Its been so bloody long since I've done this I can't remember the process of connecting to test but gennies are tough so you can't really bugger it up...................you will just get a lot of sparks if you connect wrong .

If your starting problem is a sluggish starter then your starter bushes (not brushes) may need replacing as the armature will "pole" (ie:- rub the  magnets in the starter case) and this slows the starter.Worn BRUSHES could also give a slow starter.There are other things that will slow a starter but these are probably the most common.

Your time costs nothing so if you can test things yourself then its worth the time to try.
With any problem I always test the simple, low cost items first then move up to the higher cost replacement items.
A lot of times it can be  low cost things causing the problem.
No use rebuilding a starter or generator when the problem was, say, a dirty battery connection ( yes, I've done it )

Good luck and hope this helps,

Terry.

[Philby]

Thanks very much guys,

I'll get onto it this weekend and see how I go.

Cheers,

Phil