Kaiser Frazer Owners Club Forum
General Category => Kaiser Forum => Topic started by: Logan on May 15, 2011, 03:28:17 PM
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I recently had my generator rebuilt and a new voltage regulator installed, and they are working fine. However, lately (and this happened occasionally before, but I think I was attributing it to the regulator/generator) sometimes I will lose all power, usually when travelling at low engine rpm. For example, I was pulling into the parking lot the other night and suddenly all lights went off and the engine died. I coasted to a parking stall and tried to start the car but nothing happened. The second or 3rd time I turned the key it started normally and no more problems. This has also happened when I slow down or come to a stop at intersections, but as in the parking lot case, after a few tries, it always seems to "get electricity" again and start up. Maybe it's a short of some kind?
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check your battery cables - all 4 ends. Especially the chassis/engine end ofthe ground.
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How much play do you have in the ignition switch and do you have a lot of weight on your key ring. This could be a contributing factor in losing your ignition circuit when turning and stopping.
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I'll check the battery cables, although all are fairly new. The key chain is very light--only the trunk and ignition key on a ring.
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Battery cables are a good place to start, but more likely is the ignition switch. With age they can acquire dead spots where if they are in a certain position contact is lost. Put a VOM from ground to the input terminal to the coil set for a 10 volt scale or so. Turn the key on, observe the voltage, then wiggle the key. If there is a contact problem you should see fluctuations with movement.
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The above is an excellent suggestion. Your ignition switch might be a problem, but it might not be your *only* problem.
Losing ALL your power, not just ignition via the ignition switch or power to the coil, sounds like you have a break inside a major covered wire. What I mean is, you might have a break or rot on the primary cable from the battery to a primary junction point either on the negative or positive side, or a problem with a junction block. When cold, it makes contact, but when hot it expands and with a bump or a braking/acceleration 'lean' it comes apart enough to open the circuit. A few minutes off and cooling, or just not moving and it comes together enough to work. This can happen over time in certain cases. If it was an ignition switch problem or ignition coil solely, you wouldn't be losing your lights as well. I have a Peugeot turbodiesel, and those cars are infamous for just about every electrical gremlin going due to several different causes. 1) poor and weak ignition switch--repair is using a separate HD relay to power the starter, and KF people do know that their starter buttons wear out. But that is slow or no starting rather than your problem 2) bad connections from wires to printed circuit boards that control rear lights and gauges and clock--not applicable to KF. This is the sort of problem people with fibreglass cars/dashboards have getting no power/weird stuff happening with poor grounds, especially in the Studebaker Avantis and Hawks (dash is fibreglass).
However, most important AND applicable to KF cars 3) wires, especially in the starter, charging, and primary power cables that "appear" to be just about perfect but are broken and rusted/rotten underneath the intact covering. If there is impedance, then the wire might be acting like a thermostat under load. I have had a problem with the high-beams (ie, when all four headlights are on) in my 63 Studebaker Wagonaire due to bad wiring overloading the headlight circuit and intermittently blowing the circuit breaker due to hidden corrosion that was NOT fixed by cleaning up the grounds and contacts with sanding and dielectric paste, NOR by replacing the floor switch which is also a common weak point.
I would think that a partially defective cable would like be showing higher impedance than expected, because if it is breaking, there might be rust/green rot/spark gap damage underneath. I would start by cleaning and redoing the contacts at all major points, and also by temporarily replacing the negative cable on a positive ground car. Work from there.
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I will see what happens with the ignition switch. These are all the original wires, and some are frayed, so I suspect that unfortunately it's probably a hidden gremlin. I'm planning to restore the care in the future with an all new wiring harness, but I'm still years away from that, so meantime.....I guess I start checking wires and connections.
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It died again on me today, and wouldn't restart, so I had to park it, take the bus, and come back with some tools. After running some tests on the ignition switch and checking out some other more obscure wiring, I took the negative end off the battery terminal and scraped it with a wire brush, then put it back on tight and it started right up. It didn't have any corrosion on it, so I was surprised that that was what it was. I really thought it would be something different.
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If the problem comes back, you may have a bad battery that is going "open" intermittently. I have seen this before where you are driving down the road and everything quits: no lights, radio and engine stalls. My dad had this on his 70 Plymouth. He took it to a garage and they put on a ignition switch, alternator, voltage regulator and battery cables. When the problem reoccurred, they gave up and said it was a "short" somewhere. He called me (I lived 500 miles away) wanting to sell the car. I asked him the next time it happened to see if he had lights (interior, head or brake) of any kind. It turned out to be completely dead. I told him to take a chance and replace the battery. Problem solved.
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Okay, good suggestion. If it happens again, I might go ahead and replace the battery and see what happens.
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Well, it did it again today. It started right back up this time, but maybe it is the battery. If it is going open intermittently, would that show up on a battery test? Would a battery test fail it, or do I just need to get a new battery no matter what?
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I can't quite remember how it should be, and I think there is a difference from a battery/GENERATOR and a battery/alternator circuit so someone put me right. In one of the two, if the battery goes open circuit a running engine will stay running as long as there isn't more electrical load than being produced. I'm thinking its the alternator scenario as the alternator takes over the electrical supply once the engine is running, whereas in a battery and generator, the generator is always charging the battery and the power gets taken off the battery not the generator which is why generators need servicing more often and batteries don't last as long, due to too much constant churn. Am I right?
IF that IS the case, then an intermittent break inside the battery would kill everything, engine and lights all at one. If it is intermittent (for now) it might not show up in a static test ie, while note being vibrated or thumped around over bumps. It still could be a hidden (under the covering) flex/rot break inside a major cable. You might try after it goes out to feel the positive and negative cables to see if there are any weird loose or bendy spots, or hot spots
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If the generator is charging sufficiently, the engine will run even if you remove a battery cable. (An older mechanic showed me that trick) - Low engine rpm or idling could be reducing the output of the generator to the point the engine will die. (when the battery has a problem)
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So therefore, with a battery/generator, his Kaiser should NOT suddenly go dark AND stop after a bump or slowing down etc. Now it sounds like another crucial part of the circuit is intermittently breaking contact other than the battery.
If a Kaiser were a car which had--like some makes were--a full system circuit breaker, that might explain it. Especially if it suddenly starts working again after a delay.
It sounds like one of the main cables is losing connection so neither the generator nor the battery is powering anything. Heat expansion+bump?
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Bumps don't seem to set it off. It never happens at high speeds--anything over even 20 mph. The only times it happens are when I'm coming to a stop, decelerating. Then, it usually takes a few minutes and will start back up. But everything always goes down, lights, engine, all of it.
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This is such an interesting conundrum! That narrows the problem:
1) it stops when you are *decellerating*
2) at *20 mph or less*.
3) *everything* goes out, lights, engine, all
4) starts back up in a few minutes; *full power*.
Here is my less-than-wizard take on this. I bet that there is some heat-related issue somewhere in this, if everything works in a few minutes. Something cools and contracts somewhere, and it might be electrical resistance heat, not engine heat. The slowing/stopping effort makes something move forward slightly/or the bearing down on the front end moves something slightly physically//maybe both at the same time--likely in a major cable, and the output of the generator is lost and everything dies...because at some point it was running only on the generator because the battery wasn't in the loop sometime after the car was driven for a while warmed up. Or, as long as there is sufficient flow through a wire from the generator, the (corroded?) circuit continues, but when the engine is running slowly at stopping/idle the load is too much and it "pops" out
The car sits, front end back up, leans back to normal stance, and once the wires cool, connection is made again.
One way to test if it is the battery would be to alligator clip a 6 volt test light, with a fuse of course, directly on the battery posts and have the light up through the gap in the hood. Then, if the light goes out when the engine/power goes out, you know it is the battery. If it stays on, then you know it is electrical wiring.
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Okay, good battery test. I'll see what happens with that.
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I have doubts that this the root of your troubles, but it may be helpful to others. 6V cars didn't have fuses except on added accessories like a radio or OD. Power from the battery went to a terminal on a 30 amp circuit breaker on the rear of the headlight switch. A short lead went from that terminal to the IGN switch so the ignition circuit was not protected by the breaker. The other, protected, terminal of the breaker supplied power to the light switch. If there was a bare spot in the insulation (rather common with the cloth insulated wire) that touched bare metal, the circuit breaker would click off and the lights and anything else connected to the light switch would turn off.
The important points are: 1) The breaker makes a noticeable sound when it cuts off although it may or may not make a sound when it cools off and reengages. It can click repeatedly off/on until the the light switch is shut off.
2) Most of the circuitry attached to the protected terminal of the breaker is lights so if you rarely used the lights (interior lights included) you may not encounter a problem.
3) The ignition is connected to the unprotected terminal of the circuit breaker (functionally as if the wire from the battery went directly to the IGN switch) so normally if there was a short that caused the breaker to engage, the lights would go out but the engine would still run. However, if the wiring had been altered to where the lead to the IGN switch was from the protected terminal, then the engine would shut off as well.
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We had a shorted out license Plate Light wire that had some funky symptoms, Bat man bandage fixed it.
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Took a long time for it to act up again, but it finally did yesterday. When I put my light between the battery posts it came on = it's not the battery. So, I tried what I did last time: removed the negative battery cable, roughed it and the terminal up, and put it back on. Started right up. I don't understand why, though, because there was no corrosion on the post or terminal. But when this happened last time I did the same thing and it started.
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The 6-volt electrical systems are very sensitive to ground conditions. What would pass as typical corrosion on a battery cable in a 12 volt system is serions on a 6. You note the car tends to do this going down hill. How secure is the battery in its holder. Even slight shifts of the battery can change the contact between terminal and cable; if the cable is only fair, it could be enough to cause a problem. I would suggest changing both cables with 1 gage insullated (to solenoid) and 1 gage ground strap. These cables should be available (if from no other source) from a tractor parts place; tell them it is for a 1950's vintage 6-volt Allis-Chalmers or Massey-Ferguson. Insist on 1 gage; higher numbers are thinner cables and that also impacts current flow and grounding.
I speak from experiences with my first K-F car back in the mid 1970's (a 1951 Frazer Standard sedan).
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I second that. Dirty or corroded battery cables often look just fine. I had it happen to me once where I just drove my car to the store (and I didn't bother put my toolbox in the trunk) and when I got in it to leave, it would not even click, much less turn over, when I hit the starter. I had to walk across the street and buy a wrench, take the ground cable off and despite the fact that it looked perfectly clean, scrape it up with my key, put it back on and tighten. Car started right up and I returned the wrench for a refund. The 11th commandment is always "Thou Shalt Not Drive Thy Old Car Anywhere, Anytime Without Thy Toolbox."
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Well, I guess that's what it is. Just very sensitive to any corrosion. By the way, I do have 1 gauge cables on there and they are from Antique Auto Battery, and I am not 100% satisfied with them as I said in a previous post, because they seem to be a little loose where the copper wires attach to the terminal that hooks onto the solenoid. In fact, that in and of itself might be causing me some problems, I guess. Perhaps I will try a tractor supply store.
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I've comment on the "Antique Auto Battery" cables a couple of times. My experience has been that they are poorly made junk. I've had to repair every one I ever bought - the ends fall right off them. If you want points when being judged, they will help you. If you want a realiable car, go to a tractor parts outlet.
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New cables, and WOW what a difference! I had my local starter/alternator shop make some, and after I put them on it cranked over a lot faster--I hadn't realized how bad the old ones were. Anyway, I'm assuming that will clear up my problem, but we'll have to see.
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Yeah, second and THIRD that comment. Even if they LOOK okay, they are junk. Go to any tractor dealership and have their parts department make up a real 00 cable or too. Diesel tractors need LOTS of cold cranking amps, and hot cranking amps, so tractor guys do it best. PERIOD!