Saturday night with a Buick – volt meter at the ready.
First the good news: Headway has been made with the renewed Garage Night effort Associate Editor David Conwill and I initiated last week. This past Saturday afternoon we reconvened for our second afternoon/evening of wrench turning action, in conjunction with some late-summer BBQ and good times with family by the fire pit well into the night.
The flip side of the coin: The 1961 Buick Invicta. When last we left the saga, we had reunited its rebuilt generator to the rest of the electrical system, had refired the engine for the first time in several months, and obliterated one of the main hydraulic brake lines during the proceedings. In spite of the effort, the GEN light was still illuminated, raising multiple suspicions. As alluded to, this past Saturday we picked up where we left off with the aid of a volt meter and not one but two manuals opened to the proper diagnostic pages.
You know it could be a long night in the garage when you have two shop manuals open to the electrical diagnostic sections.
Result: Not so good. Our initial thought, which happened to coincide with comments from several readers, was that the generator was in fact charging in spite of the warning lamp’s evil glow. Test one: measure the input/output at the voltage regulator. Engine idle; mid-range RPM; high revs; we tried them all and the meter never budged off of 12 volts, which means the system was feeding off the battery. Test two: measure the output directly at the generator. Confirming our worst thoughts was a stagnant meter needle. This after Dave’s wife, Crystal – also an enthusiastic mechanic – spent time cleaning all of the electrical terminals beforehand while we studied the aforementioned manuals.
So what’s next? A bench test of the generator; which could have also been accomplished had we had an ammeter in our grasp. Which is where Associate Editor Terry Shea and Editor-In-Chief Terry McGean enter the picture. Shea was in the Albany area when he received my desperate “do you have” text, and was then kind enough to run into an autoparts store to obtain a fancy multimeter while Dave and I were knee-deep in technical lingo and electrical theory. Ever try to channel Tesla into your garage? McGean, meanwhile, was offering input as potential solutions to the continuing dilemma. Eventually time caught up to us and we had to disband for the night.
There is some more good news from all of this: The Buick’s 401 starts immediately and, for whatever reason, seems to be running better than ever. I have a new multimeter ready and there’s a bench test plan in place. And in the very least perhaps the upcoming work will act like a reset button for the whole darn system. Which means all we’ll have to do is replace the brake lines. More than anything else, it’s good times in the garage. Stay tuned.
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