QuestionQUESTION: Is the electrical system a negative or positive ground system? Trying to help my mother in-law with her car.
ANSWER: It has a 6 volt POSITIVE ground electrical system, if no one has modified it.
I'd be glad to help if you tell me what the problem is.
Dick
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: The battery will loose its charge in a very short time. I am assuming the generator may be bad. Your thoughts would be appreciated.
AnswerWe can sort this out, but you'll have to do a little detective work. There are a couple of possible causes:
1. A worn out or damaged battery will not hold a charge - so I'm going to assume that the battery is near to new, and has not been allowed to sit in a discharged condition for more than a day or so before it got recharged. If I am wrong, you'll need to replace the battery before we con do much more.
2. Once you have a known good battery, we can go to the next step. The way to check the generator is to look at the ammeter when the engine is running. Turn on the headlights, and note that the ammeter shows a discharge when the engine is idling. Now, rev up the engine to a fast idle - the ammeter should move back toward the "charging" side, and if it does the generator is working. If you can rev the engine high enough that the needle moves into the plus (charging side) of the gauge, the generator is working well enough. If that is the case, we have to go to step 3.
3. Turn the headlights and the engine off, and make sure everything else is off. On that car, there isn't much in the way of accessories but turn everything off, and make sure the brake lights or the interior lights or anything at all that the car has is totally off. Now, lift off one of the battery cables from the battery post, and with something like a coat over your head to make it dark near the battery, (and with safety glasses on to protect your eyes!), tap the end of the battery cable back onto the post it came off, which post doesn't matter, just tap it lightly to see if you can notice any spark at all when you make contact between the cable end and the battery post. If you can see a spark, there is definitely something staying on, and that is what is causing the battery to go dead. Even if you cannot see any spark, there may still be something staying on- but it is a slow drain and not enough to make a spark. In this case, you might have to get someone with a VOM (Volt-Ohm-Meter) who knows how to use it. It will have to have an "AMPS" scale that goes to at least 10 Amps. With that meter, you can determine how much current is being drained. If there is enough of a drain to make a spark, you can use that test to see what is causing the problem, but either way, you are going to have to disconnect stuff, one by one, until the current drain goes away. The last thing you disconnect will be the culprit, obviously. If the generator gets warm when the car is parked, it probably is the cause, and this can happen even if the generator passed the test in step #2. Usually the cause of this is a failed voltage regulator - and it that is dangerous, because the generator can get so hot that you could start a fire, so until you track down the cause, always disconnect the battery when you park the car! If you hear a "click" when you disconnect the battery, the problem is almost certainly the voltage regulator - not the generator. NAPA stores still stock these (6 volt positive ground voltage regulators).
Get back to me with your comments after you do the above checks, and I'll help you more if you need it.
Dick
