Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I'm going to get my battery load tested. The battery fell over and lost some electrolyte a while back. When I took the starter apart I didn't find anything too noticeably wrong with it. I cleaned her out, threw her back together, and still haven't gotten anything out of her. Would bench testing the starter with a 12V do any harm to my starter?

Attach file:

---

  (26.87 KB)


  (22.53 KB)


  (19.58 KB)


  (17.49 KB)


  (28.42 KB)


  (22.38 KB)


  (22.97 KB)

If it were my starter, rather than try on 12v I would take the 6v battery someplace and have it checked, add proper electrolyte if needed, have it charged with a decent charger then checked again with a carbon pile load test to verify the condition.

Starters can run on 12v briefly and many do but those starters are all mounted in the car with a load to turn. I would be very concerned that trying on the bench without a load to slow it would result in a possible over rev and damage to the armature. There are pictures of armatures that have flown apart on motors even with a load so if you try, do take care. 6v solenoids do not like 12v so suggest not having the solenoid in the circuit if you try.

You also need to make sure the motor is very well secured and clamped. If not, the torque could send it across the bench damaging something else or do damage to the motor if the wires attached to it were pulled and twisted violently.

The inside of your starter looks cleaner than mine did and mine would start the car - just with a lot of racket. I'd start with the battery as well.

That looks like a burnt winding in the last picture and the shaft looks pretty chewed up where in runs in the bushing.

Agreed, that spot on the field windings does look a bit suspicious. Also, don't know if it's reflection or not but there seems to be a very bright edge to one of the field poles and if so, perhaps the shaft/bushing were worn enough to allow the armature to make contact.

Comment from Jason at Advanced Electrical Rebuilders would be welcome here.

The field windings were a bit nasty looking. I want to say that spot was just wet from electrical cleaner or greasy. There are bare spots on the field winding insulation where it looks like the armature may have made contact as you can see from the chips on the armature near the field poles. I had the battery checked at advance auto parts, and my cold cranking amps were way down, but everything else seemed to check out fine. So for now I am going to leave it on trickle for 24 hours and try one more time. If the same results occur I can point to the starter as the culprit.

Check the armature. Sometimes the windings at the commutator connection gets loose. Not sure there is any visual way to inspect. Probably no meter readings either,

I got into this situation about 8 years ago. The generator shop used a torch and somehow or another resoldered or reconnected the commmutator end. To this day i really do not understand it. At the time, i was standing right there watching the process with my very own eyes. I thot at the time the armature has been ruined. I put it in and it works just fine. To this day i am still baffled about the process. It really makes no sense whatsoever in view of the fact that the windings have a very thin kind of coating insulation on them that any reasonable person would quickly assume would have metled away under the heat of a torch.

yeah... I'm starting to think i'm gonna have to take this starter to a generator shop. With the tools I have i'm pretty sure I won't be able to properly repair it. I'll go out and give the windings around the commutator a look over. And that coating on the windings has really chipped and flaked off. Luckily in San Antonio there is no shortage of shops; the hard part is trying to find a trustworthy one.

Sorry "Owen_Dyneto", I've been away from the forum a while. I appreciate your request though.

Everything in the pictures looks fairly decent except for the shifting laminations on the armature. If it was bad enough, you should have found some burning or arcing. A good test without having to have all kinds of equipment is to hook the negative post of a battery to the shaft and jumper the positive to the comm, make sure to check all the way around on the comm. Look for an arc, which would indicate a short.

One questions I had for you though is, what does it do when you put power to it? Are you getting no action or current draw or are you getting heavy draw indicating a short somewhere? If you let me know this, I can maybe give you a better idea of where to check. As always, feel free to contact me direct.
Jason
Advanced Electrical Rebuilders
www.aerrebuild.com
jason@aerrebuild.com

Hi Jason,

I had preformed a bench test with no luck. The only thing I could get out of my starter was a buzzing sound coming from the solenoid. No rotation from the armature or any signs it even wanted to turn. The current read from the battery was 6.43v and dropped to 2.92v when I attempted to crank it. As far as the test you said I should preform, does it matter where I ground the armature i.e. the front where it rides in the bushing or back towards the bendix?

-Thank you,
Garrett