[TR] Stumped

[terryrs at comcast.net]

Randall is right again.

Randall, uhm, do you buy me a coffee for saying that?

I got on the phone with Moss, spoke with Blaine there, the guy who does their videos.  He led me through the diagnostics.  Very patient guy he is and needed to be!

Tested the generator good, then bypassed the yellow/green wire and all worked well.  Turns out the screw terminal must have been hitting on the insulation instead of just pure copper.  I had looked at that wire three times, but it wasn't until I knew it was the problem, peeled back more insulation and re screwed it down that it fixed the problem.

Thank you Bill Beecher for the good advice!

Driving to work tomorrow despite 30 percent chance of rain.  Bring it!

Best to all,
Terry
----- Original Message -----
From: Randall <TR3driver at ca.rr.com>
To: terryrs at comcast.net, 'Triumphs' <triumphs at autox.team.net>
Sent: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 22:40:43 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: RE: [TR] Stumped

If it charged at all, then polarizing is not the issue.

My guess would be a bad connection or broken wire somewhere, which might be inside the generator or control box.  Grease or oil on
the VR contacts can also cause a problem.

As a side note, I discovered last year that the original control boxes rely on the contact between a brass sleeve and the center
bolt through the relay to ground the voltage coil (on both relays).  Just a little bit of dissimilar metal corrosion can interrupt
the connection.  My original box exhibited symptoms somewhat similar to those you describe; and checking my collection of 'bad'
control boxes, I found a couple more with the same problem.  Disassembling and cleaning, followed by the adjustment procedure of
course, seems to have fixed my problem.  Hasn't happened since.

There's a Lucas document at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2H2NJt34OffNTc3ODkwYzAtYjRlYS00NDNmLWI0YTYtNjY5ZjQxZTA2NGFm
Which gives a fairly simple troubleshooting procedure.  Of course, it only helps if the problem is happening when you do the tests.

However, since you are looking for a "no charge" condition; I might fold the first few tests together (since it's hard to get at the
wires on the generator) and start with test 4 of Part 1.  If you get the "pass" result there, you can go on to the tests in Part 2.
The "dry card" mentioned in Part 2 can be as simple as a piece of computer paper, torn into a 'C' shape so it will stay in the
contacts by itself.

-- Randall