Growler

So I suspect I smoked something in the charging circuit last fall, could be the regulator or it could be the armature.

It's probably the armature.

There's a couple of ways I could test it but the easiest is with a growler so I took a chance and snagged the cheapest one I could find on ebay.

Purdy ain't it? OK obviously old & a bit grubby.






Well grubby ain't the word, what I thought was a black growler turned out to be an extremely grubby growler. Turns out it was actually green under all the shmutz.




I'd say it's been through a fire but it's more likely it's been through a couple. Been dropped more than once or twice as well.


OK it did actually work but I couldn't bear to leave it in that shape so the tear down commences. It was *almost* as grubby inside.



To say the wiring was roached would be the understatement of the year.

To aid in re-assembly I did a wiring diagram-



Notice anything interesting?

Everything got stripped out. I didn't bother trying to clean to case halves thy just went in the sand blaster & got shot till all the grub was gone, & it wasn't easy getting rid of it. I beat the case halves back into some semblance of straight & it's re-assembly time.

 

I won't go into the nightmares I had with the hammer tone paint job or the meter either- let's just say in both cases the 4th time is the charm. But eventually I got it all snazzed up to an acceptable standard.



Cleaner? I replaced all the coil lead sheaths and wiring with the exception of the power cord that got a new, polarized, plug. Note the colour of said power cord after cleaning & compare it to the first pic in the post above- I was shocked, umm, "Surprised" when I started to clean the red paint spots off of it & found it was the cord that was red


Re-assembly was a bit of a challenge, things are still bent more than I thought but it did, eventually, fit together.



Still some adjustments to be done but for now it's good enough.


Testing:

Shorts-




Passed OK


Windings-



Passed OK


Given the original wiring's capacity to provide a, umm, "Surprise" I did make a change to it-



Now with a LED replacement bulb the "short" current is ~ 17 - 18 mA vs. the 300+ it would have been with the extremely grubby 40 watter incandescent it came with. In fact I can grab both probes with noting more than a barely there tingle-



Actual flow as measured through my thumb to my little pinky is is in the microamp range.

Would I try this in the shower?

Hell No.

But it's a lot safer than it was


I'm pleased to report that my spare tests out perfectly, or at least equally good or bad on all windings. Now after I get around to testing my suspect armature I can put the growler up on the shelf & never touch it again

 

I was able to pull & test my genny this weekend.



Unfortunately there's nothing wrong with it

Next weekend- The Regulator.