cut-out

[wardkew]

So there we were coming home from a local show on a glorious sunny afternoon. The the '31 dies. I have no electrical anything and discover the fuse is blown. I pull the dead fuse and set a new one in the cradle and it blows in my fingers. That was special.

I removed the wires from the batt side of the cutout, slid in a new fuse and she started no problem. I then taped the ends of the wires and decided to limp home on the battery. That didn't go well and she died several more times, but no blown fuses and she immediately restated. After the forth time I'd had enough and had a good dig through my travel parts kit and found an ancient cutout that came from God knows where. I put it on and motored home with no other problems..except the ammeter shows no charge.

I believe both cutouts are original, and know they are both at least 40 years old. The one that was on when the car first died has something inside that rattles when I shake it--I'm thinking bin this one. My knowledge of cutouts is zero, so...

With an ammeter, how should I be able to read through a cutout? Is there any repair to these, or are they just a replace part? What causes failure?

I searched old threads, but didn't really find anything to answer my question. Thanks

 

[Tom Wesenberg]

Original cutouts weigh more than repro's because they have more copper and heavier steel parts, and the original covers are spot welded by a couple spot welds on the very bottom edge.

I made a wood holder and use a very pointed sharp chisel to seperate the spot welds. Once inside I can see if the fine ground wire has come loose due to a cold solder joint. I can also clean the contacts and make ajustments for air gap and closing voltage.

Nothing inside the cutout should rattle. Repro cutouts are easy to remove the cover and reapir, if they are worth repairing.

 

[Rainmaker Ron]

So there we were coming home from a local show on a glorious sunny afternoon. The the '31 dies. I have no electrical anything and discover the fuse is blown. I pull the dead fuse and set a new one in the cradle and it blows in my fingers. That was special.

I removed the wires from the batt side of the cutout, slid in a new fuse and she started no problem. I then taped the ends of the wires and decided to limp home on the battery. That didn't go well and she died several more times, but no blown fuses and she immediately restated. After the forth time I'd had enough and had a good dig through my travel parts kit and found an ancient cutout that came from God knows where. I put it on and motored home with no other problems..except the ammeter shows no charge.

I believe both cutouts are original, and know they are both at least 40 years old. The one that was on when the car first died has something inside that rattles when I shake it--I'm thinking bin this one. My knowledge of cutouts is zero, so...

With an ammeter, how should I be able to read through a cutout? Is there any repair to these, or are they just a replace part? What causes failure?

I searched old threads, but didn't really find anything to answer my question. Thanks

A poor connection somewhere between the generator and battery allowed the generator to over charge, probably up to 40 volts. This fried the cutout. when you slowed down the now stuck cutout tried to motor the generator and blew the fuse. Your replacement cutout will also fail unless you fix the poor connection. Check your stoplight also, it likely blew while the generator was running wild. I would look first at the terminals on the ammeter for a loose connection. Let us know what you fimd.

Rainmaker Ron