Car battery died at a stop light

tbirdtbird said:
any make/yr of car with an ammeter will require it to complete the wiring, not just an A. In simple terms it is a series device, tho it reads via a small shunt winding

Quite odd that the PO removed the ammeter. I am suspicious of some other problem lurking. Let's hope the PO did not burn up the generator by running with no meter
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Who knows how it is wired? If it is wired as a '31 and the ammeter is left out it won't even run.
 
It can happen even though the ammeter is probably the problem here. We were on tour and I was the back door. Car started fine at the lunch stop and we were about 2 miles from our night stop when I noticed the inverter/cb radio was not working right. Generator was charging. When I pulled up to a stop sign at an intersection of 2 highways, when the engine went to idle, the car just quit. At that point, everyone had taken off like a barn broke horse and we were alone. Hit the starter and nobody home. Pulled out the pliers and had absolutely no spark between poles on the battery. All this while an 18 wheeler was behind me which can add to the pressure of a break down. Pushed it to the side and luckily my wife had a cell phone since the cb was dead. Called ahead and they rescued us with a tow rope. Atwoods was across the street from the motel. Batteries were even on sale. Post must have broke internally.
 
Ok, I have done the following. I charged the battery for about 8 hours on slow charge 6volts. Installed the ammeter this morning and the wires behind the dash were all connected together. There were 3 wires back there black and yellow, yellow and another wire that was for the light on the dash. I seperated all the wires looked at the wire diagram and connected black wire with yellow and dash light wire to the right pole and yellow wire to the left pole. Tested the battery with a meter and read 7volts. Hooked up the battery to the car turned it on with no problem. The ammeter read 0 and when I pressed on the gas peddle to rev it up it was still on 0. I left it running at high idle for about 5 min and still at 0. Turned on the head lights on and the ammeter read 10 on the discharge side. Turned them back off and it went back to 0. I'm guessing the generator is not charging and I am running just on battery, like someone on here suggested I was. What do I need to do next? Any suggestions?
Thanks
 
check the cutout; polarize the gen. if that doesn't do it the gen is prolly cooked. sniff the back end of the gen where the slots in the case are after you remove the band. is there an electrical burn odor?
 
i got a similar voltage when my battery crapped out. i vow that was the last 155$ 6v battery i will ever buy. i went to twelve volt. i keep a heavy duty rope in the car for pull starts if need be. but if you were not charging that wouldn't do you any good.
 
mike657894 said:
i got a similar voltage when my battery crapped out. i vow that was the last 155$ 6v battery i will ever buy. i went to twelve volt. i keep a heavy duty rope in the car for pull starts if need be. but if you were not charging that wouldn't do you any good.
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Mike, if that $155 battery was an OPTIMA BATTERY, they take SPECIAL charging procedures different than for a lead-acid flooded battery.
 
If the battery started the car, and went dead in 3 miles. You have loose wires, or a short some where. You should also check the battery connections at the battery. They might need cleaning, this happens a lot.
 
Ditto on TomW's 6A charge... I had a 2A slow charger which in theory lower current/slower the better but my own battery ran low and it took 2, 8hr 6A charing sessions to turly get my battery back. I will no long use my trickly charger... I think only long 6A full charges are best.... as my experiense has been.
 
George Miller said:
If the battery started the car, and went dead in 3 miles. You have loose wires, or a short some where. You should also check the battery connections at the battery. They might need cleaning, this happens a lot.
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The battery cables are all clean and tight, the ammeter is not showing any charge at all. The ammeter is at 0 all the time and on discharge when I turn on the lights. Even on fast idle the ammeter reads 0.
 
tbirdtbird said:
check the cutout; polarize the gen. if that doesn't do it the gen is prolly cooked. sniff the back end of the gen where the slots in the case are after you remove the band. is there an electrical burn odor?
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How do I polarize the generator?
 

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When you jump across the two cutout terminals for one second it will be polarized.

Did you jump them with a clip lead while at fast idle?
 
he effectively did that by manually closing the points in other post
then noticed that the ammeter was discharging by 10 amps

Tom your anticipated voltage of 6.7 charging volts surprises me but you are the acknowledged guru of all things electrical beyond any doubt
 
tbirdtbird said:
he effectively did that by manually closing the points in other post
then noticed that the ammeter was discharging by 10 amps

Tom your anticipated voltage of 6.7 charging volts surprises me but you are the acknowledged guru of all things electrical beyond any doubt
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That would likely be the reading at the battery posts, and I'd expect some line loss between the generator and battery, but your reading of 7.2 would be good at the generator. I mainly just wanted to show the battery voltage should rise by 1/2 to 1 volt at the battery posts to show the generator was working.

As you say, pushing the contacts closed is the same as jumping the two terminals, but I was thinking it might not be due to the solder joint being bad. However the discharge of 10 amps most likely shows battery current was reaching the generator, and that the generator is bad.:)
 
Tom Wesenberg said:
That would likely be the reading at the battery posts, and I'd expect some line loss between the generator and battery, but your reading of 7.2 would be good at the generator. I mainly just wanted to show the battery voltage should rise by 1/2 to 1 volt at the battery posts to show the generator was working.

As you say, pushing the contacts closed is the same as jumping the two terminals, but I was thinking it might not be due to the solder joint being bad. However the discharge of 10 amps most likely shows battery current was reaching the generator, and that the generator is bad.:)
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Thanks tom, I kind of figured the generator was bad at this point with everyone help. I still orders a new cutout from Berts and will have my generator repaired. Does anyone know of anyone that can rebuilt my generator near Ontario, California? If not I'll wait till my car club meets to ask anyone there. Thanks everyone for all your help
 
You might want to remove the band from the generator and have a look inside
to see if there is anything obvious wrong.

Bob
 
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