Well, I hate electrical, always have. This is actually on my dad's '67 Bird but is the same set-up as our cars. The battery will drain in a day of sitting. I have tested the current at the battery cable and there is a draw. Testing the solenoid at the starter side and also on the two small posts it is all drawing the same small amount. My thought is something is feeding into the body, a short somewhere, but where. We played around with different connectors, wiggled wires etc and eventually pulled the plug on the voltage regulator, drain is gone along with quite the arc at the connector to the regulator when plugging or unplugging it. I had another regulator there that we swapped in, no drain but now it's not charging the battery. I wasn't sure if that regulator is good or not though, it was working on the car it was taken off of but it's been sitting for quite a few years. I took his old one home with me tonight and tested it with my ohmmeter between two other regulators that I have here, of course not knowing if these were good either. All three tested different, they are as follows: -dad's old one - ground to "I" 9.2 ohms - ground to "S" .38 ohms - "I" to "S" 9.59 ohms - "A" to "F" 0 ohms, full connectivity - all other points have no connection -spare #1 - ground to "S" 1 ohm - all other points have no connection -spare #2 - ground to "I" 10.71 ohms - ground to "S" .39 ohms - "I" to "S" 11.0 ohms - all other points have no connection Aside from going out and purchasing another regulator (to which can't be returned if that's not it) can anyone tell from these numbers what regulator is good? I compared this to the one on my Comet but the readings are again all together different and I'm suspecting that's because I have an old points style regulator whereas all the other ones are the electronic style. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
The old mechanical regulators had a pair relays inside. Sometimes the contacts would weld together and cause the exact problem you're describing.
All the regulators that I have tested are of the electronic style including dad's original one that was in the Bird. The only older mechanical style one that I have is the original one that still works in my Comet. With all the different readings I'm getting between these regulators one has to be bad, and I'm suspecting that the one we were originally dealing with was feeding power through the body of the regulator into the ground? Or not grounding? Or is it the alternator that could be leaking through a diode? I'd hate to pull the alternator off this thing, it's waaaay down towards the bottom. HELP!
Take the regulator to the auto parts store. Most of them can test them for free. My guess is it is a bad alternator though.
None of our stores here have that kind of testing equipment. All they want to do is sell it to you and then tough crap if it isn't the part you need. I used to be a partsman at a few of the stores around here for over 12 years and they're all cheap s.o.b.'s (that's why I finally got a decent paying job, loved working with parts though). I guess if all else fails I can take all these regulators over to dad's next time and hopefully one of them is good? If not then I guess I'll be pulling the alternator. I thought that maybe someone would be able to tell me by the numbers I had in the original post which regulator was good or bad by the resistance.
check the...ALT., BATT. and REG. a lot of times if one goes bad it will take one or both of the others with it. then when you replace one known bad part, if another part is bad it takes out another (or the same part)... had a friend of mine that ...chased his tail on the same thing...he thought he was buying bad parts... ......
Rob,, Disconnect the main wire from the back of the altenator,, its the thickest one there,, Prob a 3/8 or 7/16 nut under a rubber boot,, connect the regulator and every thing the way it was leaving just that wire off and retest the system,,, Inside the altenator is a unit called the Diode trio,, 3 diodes that alow voltage to go from the altenator to the battery to charge it. if one or more of these Diodes are bad it will drain the battery when the car is off,,, but will still charge while running,, Joe
This was one of my first suspects but I wanted to eliminate the easy and cheap stuff first before getting to the more labour intensive and expensibe stuff. I'll get to it again this weekend and will try this with the original regulator back in it as it did charge with this one. I'll post what the results are, or the rant, to my findings. Thanks guys!
Rob,, All as you need is a test light to test for Draw,,, remove the battery cable. and clamp the clip end of the test light to the battery cable,,,, use the probe side and touch the battery,,, if the light goes on ya have a draw,,, if its dim but on its a slite draw. make sure all is off in the car and ignition is also off, if you have an under hood light that goes on when hood is open ,,,disconnect it,, a door being open will turn on the light,, thru the dome switch in the door..... Joe
Problem solved, it was the regulator that was bad that was causing the drain. Spare regulator #2 is the one that worked. As we can see then the one that was in there was shorted out between the "A" and the "F" terminals inside. Now I have to get it to stay running at idle. That's what happens when you leave a car sit too long!
