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56sedandelivery Valued Contributor Posts 2560 |
03-24-12 08:10 PM - Post#2207089
Beautiful day here today; clear, sunny, and warm, so I'll probably be mowing the lawn tomorrow. But today, Brandon came over, and we decided to take his car for a drive; first to the gas station to fill the tank, then over to the local industrial park straight-a-way, AKA Associated Blvd, er' Dragway. Brandon makes a tight U-turn, and kills the motor, tries to restart it, but all we get are clicks from the starter motor.........battery is dead (???). We wanted to keep the car looking old school, and kept the generator, and that apparently got hot and tossed solder. Time to swap to an alternator, but I'd still like it to looking somewaht old school; after all we just did the rewire, and have a voltage regulator on the firewall where one was stock. So, I'd like to keep a regulator, although it would be far easier to go with an internal regulator alternator, or a single wire alternator. Other than the dead battery problem, the car ran fine, and we got a few looks. Had to call my wife to bring jumper cables so we could get it back to the garage. Who has an opinion on what to do, external, internal, single wire alternator, and how will that effect the stock ammeter gauge, and need for an idiot light. Thanks, Butch/56sedandelivery. |
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Panama Red "3rd Year" Silver Supporting Member Posts 481 
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03-24-12 08:50 PM - Post#2207104
Here's some conversation in a sticky thread in the 29-41 area. http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?ti... I converted mine to 12v over the winter and installed the one wire PowerGen unit. Haven't finished the rewiring yet so I can't say how well it works. Sure looks slick tho'.
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rrausch "12th Year" Silver Supporting Member Posts 9710 |
03-24-12 08:54 PM - Post#2207106
It's called the gener-nator, and it costs some bucks but if you gotta have it, you gotta have it.
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56sedandelivery Valued Contributor Posts 2560 |
03-24-12 11:23 PM - Post#2207134
Here's some conversation in a sticky thread in the 29-41 area. http://www.chevytalk.org/fusionbb/showtopic.php?ti... I converted mine to 12v over the winter and installed the one wire PowerGen unit. Haven't finished the rewiring yet so I can't say how well it works. Sure looks slick tho'. So, do you just leave the old regulator in place for looks or what; what about the wires? I looked on the Gener-Nator site ealier today, along ith a few other sites. Got a couple of downloads printed out, one specifically for the AD trucks; the wiring harness we used was for a 47 truck. I see it says the old generatore is deleted, and some of the old wiring is reused, and some added. Maybe we'll just replace the generator and regulator, and go from there. Butch/56sedandelivery. |
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VANDENPLAS Frequent Contributor Posts 1458 
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03-25-12 02:57 AM - Post#2207146
i was thinking about my charging system the other day and had an idea. i am planing on using the chevy generator/pwr steering combo to keep things some what period looking under the hood. but what i was thinking is somewhere on the drive shaft or rear end to fab up a mounting point for a pulley and mount an alternator under the car driven off the drive shaft, i know it wont charge when i am not driving,but i was thinking of using the generator to power 1 battery to run the cars electrical and the alternator to run my stereo and auxilery electrical items. i do have these large battery switches from an old boat i could use also and would be able to switch from one battery to another if i have a problem with either charging system. it might work,might be over engineered silliness but i think its a fairly neat and clean way to add a modern alternator and still keep under the hood somewhat factory or "period" looking.
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usmile4 "6th Year Gold Supporting Member Posts 3081 |
03-25-12 06:19 AM - Post#2207183
NASCAR used to run a fuel pump off a drive shaft pulley located right in front of the rear end pumpkin, don't see why you couldn't run an alternator back there.
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triplefive Contributor Posts 651 
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03-26-12 05:03 AM - Post#2207563
Hmmmmmmmmm. I gotta say, that's really thinking outside the square and I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm, but there must surely be a better way. The driveshaft will need gearing up a long ways to run an alternator at the speed it needs. There's dirt and water under there. you need all sorts of bracketry, extra batteries, lots of wiring,heavy duty switches, etc. And would the alternator be body mounted or would it thrash up and down with the diff? The only problem I see with a generator is that most of them are getting a bit long in the tooth and short on brushes. If they are refurbished and in good condition, they should serve you well just like an alternator - and they look cool in these cars. Sort of reminds me of years ago when my Dad was thinking of mounting a small room air conditioner in the back seat of the family car and running it with an inverter. I say keep the gennie or fit an alternator, but you certainly gotta be given full marks for lateral thinking. Cheers. Mike.
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VANDENPLAS Frequent Contributor Posts 1458
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03-26-12 05:27 PM - Post#2207810
thanks for the compliment i am always told my thinking is "abstract"  anyways the generator i am using is a combo unit with the pwr steering all in one neat package. i like a bare clean simple under hood look,i built a 85 square box blazer years ago and put a 350 tpi engine in it i fabbed up my own brackets so i could mount the alternator and pwr steering pump as low as i could so when you opened the hood all that you saw was engine even the wiring was tucked away and hidden as best as i could.)(i got a lot of compliments on that install) so that is why i was thinking about the alternator idea, why could i not just gear it 1-1 with the drive shaft rotation? i am sure there is a formula to figure this out,as of right now its just a thought that i have not gone all out on....yet, its probably overkill as i think the gennie should fill my charging needs just fine. but i would have mad some brakets and mounted the alternator on the diff housing with a short belt and some kind of covering to help protect the alternator somewhat. lots of cars run there alternator down low with some shielding to keep road muck off them. also its not like this car would get driven in te witer months or in big rain or bad weather (at least not on purpose. i think it would work and look really slick.
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