48 Windsor- questions???

[48Windsor]

Hi all, been going through the old 6v system. I like to clean up all the contacts, replace battery cables, etc. to try and keep it functional. Wasn't charging, took gen. in to check out/rebuild. Its toast, arm. shorted. inside of case looks like something exploded. Rebuilder found one on a back shelf rebuilt years ago. Bought it for $125 which I thought was a SCORE!. 

Printed the wiring diagram off another site. The wiring in engine bay is a mess. While tracing wires to the coil, the wire to the ignition switch is MIA. Don't know how it started and ran and shut off with the key??. The - side of the coil only has a wire coming from the relay on the fender. Anyone out the know which bundle the ignition wire is supposed to come out of??? The wires on the + side now trace back correctly. It WAS wired backwards. Sorry don't have a pic of the wire bundles coming out of the firewall

Fuel gauge doesn't work. Prev. Owner replaced fuel tank, lines, and supposedly the sender. Is there a way to check whether its gauge, sender or other problem? 

I've got a shop manual on order but I hasn't showed up yet. 

Any guidance appreciated. 

Tom B

[garbagestate 44]

You might try removing the sender and put an ohmeter across the 2 contacts,swing the float arm and see if you get a resistance reading. Offhand I can't remember what it's supposed to be but you can probably do a search to get a better idea. If it tests good you get to rule that out as the weak link. As for the other issues, I'm sure somebody will chime in with some useful stuff. Good luck

[rb1949]

With the dash open and access to the gauge, checked and had power to the gauge. Pulled sender and hooked it up with jumpers. Don't forget a good ground. Moved float and gauge worked. Soldered short wire to sender housing for a better ground in trunk. Put sender back in. Ran new test wire from gauge to sender. Gauge worked. Looks like single wire from sender to gauge was defective. Installed new wire under carpet, all is fine. Good luck finding the culprit for a fix.

[White Spyder]

Good grounds is the first step!

 

[48Windsor]

Thanks for the tips. Bad grounds on these old cars are always a problem it seems. To many years of moisture and neglect. 

After looking at the wiring diagram again could the two wires shown going to the - coil connection be joined together somewhere in the harness, resulting in only one wire>

[Dodgeb4ya]

The 6 volt feed to the negative side of the coil is supplied in different ways depending on the design of the factory harness. Chrysler wiring harnesses for 1946-48 had several production changes during these years and were wired differently.

The 6 volt feed to the  negative (-) coil can be wired directly from the ignition switch terminal that is marked "Coil" or can be fed from the "BAT" terminal on the transmission relay.

The "BAT" relay terminal is then fed directly from the ignition switch "Coil" terminal.

This can be confusing when looking at wiring diagrams as the wires of course are taped up into the harness and cannot easily be seen... especially when the wire colors are faded. 

[48Windsor]

Yep, thats the way the wires traced out, Didn't know what the relay was called. That's kind of what I thought. Figuring out what comes out of an old harness is time consuming to figure out. Anyway, I've got everything hooked back up according to the diagram? and the way it was originally with the exception of correcting the +and -on the coil. Hooked the battery up, NO SMOKE!. Hit the starter button and it ran for about 15 seconds and died due to the choke/carb not being right. Started again and ran for 5 seconds. Now, no fire to the plugs. Must have lost something, points, coil, condensor. One step forward, 2 steps back. 

Another mystery, I found this wire buried under tape on the armature wire harness. Any idea where it should go.  Sorry for being such a pain but I'm kinda shootin in the dark on this 69 year old stuff. Can't afford to take it somewhere and have someone else try and figure it all out. 

Thanks  for everyones comments and advice so far. Looking forward to driving this old rig.

[Dodgeb4ya]

The armature terminal on the generator has two wires going to it...

The big10 ga red comes from the regulator and a smaller 16 ga brown that comes from the top inner starter solenoid terminal.

The wire with out the terminal on it should be a green and the field wire from the regulator.

[DonaldSmith]

The solenoid is grounded to the "F" field post of the generator.  Ma Mopar did this so that, with the engine running, the field post no longer provided a ground, and Miss Daisy could not grind the starter.  

 My '47 schematic shows a brown wire from the solenoid to a post of the regulator, where it connects to a green wire to the "F" terminal of the generator.  Ma Mopar did this to save some wire and just confuse us.  There are several cases where Ma Mopar saved wire by running things off common posts.

So the little wire hanging out from the two that connect to the "A" armature post may be the wire that is supposed to go to the "F" post.  (You could ground this wire and the starter solenoid would work.  I grounded this wire when I installed an alternator,  But I must be careful not to hit the starter button when the engine is running.) 

Edited January 28, 2017 by DonaldSmith
Added parenthetical remark

[Dodgeb4ya]

The brown solenoid wire goes directly to the "ARM" on the generator on the 1948 chrysler.

Never the green wire field terminal.