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Good evening. The charging light on my 1951 200 was illuminated and I've cleaned the generator commutator and have installed new brushes.
I've reinstalled the generator this weekend and while I was running the car, at idle the battery light was out. As I began to drive it or increase the engine RPMs the light starts to come on again.

I took it out again tonight and drove it with the lights on. Again, at idle, the battery light was off even though the lights were on. As I drove it and the rpms increased, the battery light illuminated. Again, when the car was idling, the battery light would go out.

I'm not sure what would cause this. When I had checked the voltage regulator middle (bat or gen?) terminal yesterday, grounded to the positive battery terminal, the reading was 7.35v.

Would anyone have any thoughts on what might cause this condition?

Thank you for any help.

Bob

That is an odd one. If Jason sees your post, he might have a quick answer. In the meantime, a couple of things to check and do. First would be to ensure the battery is hooked up correctly. Assuming it is, then if you have not already done so, re-polarize the generator. That is something Packard recommended doing any time the generator or regulator was changed or worked on. If the battery was backward, definitely re-polarize.

If re-polarizing does not solve the problem, here are a couple of pages on signal lite operation from an old Echlin service bulletin. They mention a couple of easy things to check which could cause the issue.

The entire Echlin bulletin has been on my computer since 2010 and from the watermark, it appears it is somewhere on site here. I didn't see it offhand to link to.

Edit: found the entire articlepackardinfo.com/xoops/html/downloads/1957-59EchlinSB.pdf Lots of good info and it was posted by Dave K. (clipper47)

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Howard,

Thank you for the guidance. I will take a look at the voltage loss tonight to see if there is too much resistance in the system.

G'day Bob(PABOB),
to PackardInfo, and I invite you to include your '51 200 in the Packard Owner's Registry here on PackardInfo!

Mal,

My son already registered the 200 under Bigbadbernard - I think. He's the one that put me onto you guys for help and he was right. This is one of the most helpful forums that I have seen.

Thank you and the other members for having such an open and useful site.

One side of the charge light is connected to the ignition switch terminal at the switch if I read the diagram correctly.

The other side of the charge light is connected to the the "A" or " Gen" terminal at the voltage regulator.

So with this knowledge, if the engine is running you should measure the voltage between the "A" or "GEN" terminal and the "B" or "BAT" terminal right at the voltage regulator. There should be a fraction of a volt. It will be higher with the entire load on such as lights and radio etc.

Measure the "A" connection and then the "B" connection at the regulator to ground, which should be essentially the same with the car running. About 7.3 volts.

The likelihood is either the regulator or the switch, although wires can become brittle and break at terminals.

If the cutout contacts inside the regulator is in bad condition it will allow a voltage drop that could illuminate the light.

The other notorious problem can be the ignition switch itself if there is a voltage drop across the switch when it is in the on position. You may be able to carefully measure across the terminals of the switch under the dash, this should be a small fraction of a volt.

The headlights are directly connected to the battery.

Jim