certjeff1

Based off of a couple of quick measurements. I might have what you are looking for. I will do some better more accurate measurements tomorrow. Jeff

Steve Yes I have both the generator and starter brushes in stock. Jeff

I am looking for the glovebox light switch for a 1949 Cosmopolitan.

I look at your question of mechanical vs electronic simply from a diagnostic view. As I believe both are reliable. With any type of mechanical item you can see wear and you can see burned and with experience you can learn what caused burned and make the required repair and eliminate a possible future repair possibly under warranty. With electronic they are usually sealed making it hard to see what inside failed. Making it hard to learn the difference between poor manufacturing and other problems with the vehicle that caused the failure. I will always recommend to the novice or newbie to the old car hobby or car repair in general that they keep the mechanical parts and learn how to spot worn vs burned and what can cause each part to burn. That was how I was taught at 14, by my dad and grandad, while learning to rebuild starters and generators in the family business. It wasn't until I had a couple of years under my belt that they gave me an alternator, with its electronics, to rebuild.

To get this straight you turn on the ignition switch and the lights turn on. You turn on the headlight switch and your fuel pump turns on. And all you did between this happening and everything working correctly was clean the headlight reflectors nothing else? Those switches when wired correctly have nothing in common. I would check to see how the wires were run out from their respective switch. If they are in the same protective loom or tape they could be melted together. This could also explain your lighting issue if it was not solved by cleaning the reflector.

Mick 33362 is d-12-cx in Standard, ohio,sterling and pyramid brands. d87 in gilfillan 32247 is d-12-c in Standard,ohio,sterling and pyramid brands. d85 in Gilfillan. I have a set. You can call me if you are interested 1-440-439-1100 Jeff

The way most cars are wired the front turn and indicators use the same circuit. The rears to keep from back feeding the fronts and causing the fronts to also light with the brake pedal pressed are run separately. Since the brake lights and turn lights are the same bulb.I would suspect the turn signal switch. I would disconnect the wires from the switch and send power to each bulb from that point. If they are bright then you have a bad switch. If they are dim I would trace the wires back.

Studebaker used the same Bendix part #R11X from 1920 to 1929 regardless of using a Wagner or a Remy starter. Starting in 1930 they used R11XV which used a larger counterweight for better cold weather starting.

I have that gear NOS.

Like Jack said power your horns to see if they are good. Your horn relay should have 3 horn connections. 1 constant power, 1 to the horns and 1 from the horn button. Once you have the relay wired correctly to the horns. You will have 1 wire going up the column to the horn contact inside the steering wheel. If you ground that wire your horns will work. Is your steering wheel the original or has it been changed to an aftermarket? I see so many aftermarket, especially Grant brand, steering wheels where the horns do not work and they end up with a toggle like you have. With original steering wheels I find the contacts rusted and you do not get a good ground. With aftermarket steering wheels I find the horn contacts are not assembled correctly.

The most popular sizes found at auto parts stores are .157" or .195" with a .220 measurement most likely Rhode Island Wiring, YNZ yesterday or Narragansett Reproductions. Since they specialize in reproducing wiring harnesses.

If you are not using a trailer with electric brakes or an electric winch then I would just change the bulbs as the others have said. Doing a 12v conversion on your vehicle will take more time and cost a more in parts than say a Ford or Chevy of the same vintage. The main reason being is you have 2 unique items on your Plymouth that there are no exact 12v replacements for. Headlight bulbs and ignition coil.

My Standard Auto Electricians book says Autolite #CB-4014 for the cutout. I don't have one. There is a guy selling some on ebay item #253169304091.

What happened before this? Was the car in storage for the winter? Had you been making repairs to another problem? How long since it last started correctly? Did you just go to the store one day and no start since? Put a voltmeter on the battery and try to start the car. Watch the voltmeter what does the voltage drop to? If it crashes you either have a locked up motor or a battery that will not handle the load. If it does not drop at all you most likely have a cable problem.

Delco Remy part #820052. I have many of these NOS.

I have rebuilt quite a few of these over the years what you have nothing more than a modified Delco Remy starter with a solenoid mounted to it. Similar to what your car uses. Just because a small amout of smoke has come out does not mean it is bad. You could still have another problem. Disconnect the copper strap from the solenoid to the motor post. Ground the case, put power to the stud and see what happens. If you still get little to no movement or smoke then yes you have a bad motor. Why did it go bad while just sitting? Cant entirely answer that until you open it and see what is wrong.

I think both fuses and fusibles can be used and will do their job. I pointed out the 2 vehicles in the last post to show that you can make all the safety precautions you want sometimes they do not always protect the way we want them to protect. With the 71 Dodge we replaced the fusible with a fuse only because we were not sure what caused the fusible to burn and do to its close location to the plastic bulkhead connector we did not want to have to replace that a second time if we did not find the cause of the failure. It was good that we did it the way we did because it took a couple of fuses blowing before we found the faulty regulator. I generally do not recommend using universal wiring kits for the novice, I know they are usually less money, but you spend more labor time making it fit. They also require changing to negative ground, getting rid of the ammeter in favor of a voltmeter, glass fuse for blade and other items. They become cookie cutter. These cars and electrical items worked well for years and now our suppliers to make their life easier are telling us we need to change things do to safety or poor quality. It is the same situation when mechanics or friends tell people they must convert from 6v to 12v to get their vehicles electrical system to work properly. Just because they do not know how to fix these older systems does not mean there aren't people out here that can. Just because the box auto parts store cant afford to stock the correct part does not mean that you should have to change. Find a source that does have the correct part.

Fuses and fusible links are designed to protect the wiring from any type of circuit fault caused by amperage overload. But over the years I have seen both fail to protect the wiring. Most recently we had a 1971 Dodge Dart Swinger that the fusible link from the starter relay to the fuse panel fried, but by the time in burned thru it damaged the bulkhead connector beyond reuse. We found the voltage regulator was full fielding the alternator causing the amperage overload. Many years back we had a late 80's Ford Crown Victoria that a local NAPA store had supplied 6 alternators for. When they gave us a call. We said we would supply an alternator on one that if ours failed we wanted the car. We made that stipulation since we could not open any of the NAPA alternators without voiding the warranty. Ours did fail, we got the car, opened the alternator and found the number 1 positive diode burned. This is caused by load dump. After repairing the alternator and running tests we found that the AC compressor was drawing 75A, without ever blowing and fuses or burning any fusible links. We compared another Crown Vic and it was only drawing 15a.

Let's start with the horn. Most companies like Ron Francis, Painless and American Autowire use a common power feed for multiple accessories that use constant power. Such as horns, dome light, courtesy light things like that. The fuse panel might be marked BAT or B+. If you have fuses marked in the way pull and check for power at your BAT terminal on your horn relay. If you lose power then the circuit is protected even though it is not listed. As for the starter which circuit do you want to protect? The ignition to solenoid or the motor? The solenoid circuit would only require a small maybe 10A, many small industrial equipment companies do this but you very seldom see it with car companies. The starter motor itself that is a different story. General rule of thumb is 1A of starter draw per cubic inch of engine size. Ford back in the early 90's used this setup it did not work great. They used an ANL type fuse at about 175A. If you jump started the car it would blow. I even saw them blow if the wipers were frozen to the windshield and you tried to operate them. The only way to get a fuse setup for that kind of amperage is thru a modern car audio company. Those loud obnoxious stereo systems you hear before you see them can have a fuse setup over 400A.

I recommend John Wolf in Cleveland. I have used them for years. 1-440-942-0083

I also recommend John Wolf have used them for years. 1-440-942-0083

You are not going to damage the diodes. I have been building alternators for 35 years.

Disconnect any wiring to the alternator. Using jumper cables go from the battery straight to the alternator. Take the negative to the alternator housing. And tap the positive to the output terminal on the rear of the alternator. If you do not get any sparks it is a negative ground alternator.

Dirty or loose connections create high resistance and thus poor, low or intermittent charging voltage. Not an excessive reading. The light simply turns on the alternator. If you have a bad bulb the alternator will not turn on. As far as loose or poor connections in the light circuit causing charging problems this will not happen. If he had said that there was no voltage in the red wire at the regulator then that could cause voltage excessive readings as that is the regulator voltage sensing wire. And if the regulator reads no voltage in that wire it thinks the battery is dead and tells the alternator to produce everything it has. But changing engine rpms will not put the alternator into normal charging range. It will be high until you fix that wiring problem. Yes bad connections at the alternator can cause output problems. Always poor or low readings. You will see a normal 14v reading at the alternator output post and a much lower reading at the battery.

17 plus volts sounds to me that you are in a full field situation and that would also be why you hear the alternator whine. If you put an ammeter in the circuit you will probably see 37 to 55 amps. When an alternator is producing amperage it creates a whine. The more amps the louder the whine. When the system falls into the normal voltage range you will probably see the amperage go down as well. And the alternator quiets down. It is very common with mechanical regulators to see the voltage rise slightly as you take the engine up from idle. Not the other way around. At this point because you have your light function back and the voltage does drop into the normal range I would say your wiring is fine. I would take the regulator off and test it with an alternator on an alternator test bench. If you get the same readings on the test bench then yes you have a bad regulator if you get good readings then you have something wrong in your system and it is affecting this regulator differently than the other one.