Reg again - what's this about?

I was going try everything I could to get that regulator working without a trip to town in the morning. I can rebuild engines with my eyes closed, but the inside of a regulator mystifies me. It is the only thing I can think of that makes me feel like I have no idea whether my tinkering has improved the situation at all. I would rather spend my day packing wheel bearings.

I took the busted one off and took the cover off. I had two others that had died as well they all looked the same inside. I was hoping for massive scorch marks or the smell of burned lumber. Something to make me feel validated. They all looked pristine inside.

I used sand paper to clean between the points and put it back on. It charges now, but full tilt. At idle it charges 5 amps, but at WOT it runs over 30 amps. So I guess I am still going to get a regulator.

Is there a test I can do on the bench (like with a multimeter across terminals) to validate whether a reg is working correctly without mounting it up? Measure resistance? Anything to not have to put a bad one back on just to feel the sting of dissappointment. Granted, I can do it with my eyes closed now, but it still isn't fun.

NJA, I was thinking along the same lines. What jumps out to me would be spring pressure against magnetic strength. That is to say the thing is a bunch of relay's that are supposed to trigger at the power increase/decrease. So, spring tension comes to mind. fwiw

Notjustair,Open your email and I will send you a PDF with some very good info on regulators.

(quoted from post at 13:44:26 12/31/12) Notjustair,Open your email and I will send you a PDF with some very good info on regulators.

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DEN my email should be on , would you send me a cople of the regualtor info also
Thanks

R Geiger,Email sent

NJA,
I have a shop in my area that works specifically with alternators, generators and the like. Will see what they have to say. I'll get back later this week.
Mr. T. Minnesota

Finding a good new 6 volt regulator for an N tractor has been a problem for a number of years. The last time I purchased one was about 10 years ago. Even then I had to buy 3 before one worked properly. Most places will not take electrical parts back even if the don't work correctly out of the box so I had 2 paper weights. I have worked on what looked like perfectly good but not working regulators for hours and have never been able to fix any of them. That is one of the reasons I converted my three 8Ns to 12 volts. The 12 volt alternator is cheap and easy to find and has a lot of operating advantages. If it is 6 volts and working fine I would leave it alone but if it has regulator problems I would convert it before wasting money trying to find a good regulator.

"Oreilly Auto Parts carries BWD electrical components which are made in the USA. The part number for your tractor is R190.

These also carry a lifetime warranty - Last one I bought was around $65.00"

From a post from DollarBill a while back. Mine is almost a year old now and works great.
Thanks DB!