Voltage regulator question
 

The VR on my 149 was faulty. I got a new one from Patton Acres, the $60 after-market one. Installed it today. Hooked up a voltmeter to the battery (13.2V) and started the engine. At idle I was reading 14.5V, at WOT 16.8V.
Charge indicator gauge needle slightly on the + side.
I'm concerned that 16.8V is too high. Continued running at high RPM will cause the battery to boil over.
Asking for opinions on this.
Connections made: F wire to F terminal, BAT wire to BAT terminal, GEN wire to GEN terminal on underside of new VR. L terminal not used. Ground wire removed.
Pics of old (L) and new VR (R). Sorry for poor quality.

http://www.onlycubcadets.net/forum/p...pictureid=6109

Make sure that the mounting feet are properly grounded. With a meter, there should be zero ohms resistance between the V/R mounting feet (and or case) and to the battery negative ( - ) terminal.

Just checked; 0.0 ohm on my digital Fluke.

That is too high.

Sounds like it is grounded and wired right.........I think your new V/R is bad.

Thought so. Output from the S/G is the same as I was seeing at the battery; an unregulated charge.
Here's the link to what I bought from Patton Acres.
Unfortunately for me, it's sold 'as is - no warranty'.
http://www.pattonacres.com/cub-cadet...2-123-149-169/

Is it adjustable as the OE ones were? Granted you shouldn't have to right out of the box. Although, you should contact them and just see what they say, he might work with you on it, as long as everything is hooked up exactly right and your positive it's the problem. What was wrong with the old one?

One of the coils was bad. Not charging the battery.

Might Give him a call and nicely explain what is going on, wouldn't hurt anything.
Usually if it is charging like that, the field is fully excited, meaning the field wire is
fully grounded.
If the "F" wire is grounded somewhere other than through the reg. it will charge unregulated, worth a check.
If no luck with a phone call to him, I'd take the cover off carefully and look @ the points to see if visually something is a miss.

George, ohmed ( is that a word?) all the wires yesterday; all good. Plan on looking at the points later today.

FWIW, If you don't know,
In theory,
as the voltage builds the coil gets stronger and pulls the points apart.
fighting the spring(s) --- it is a balance thing,
that is how a mechanical reg works.

Also sometimes the wire terminals are in the same location, but marked different,
so make sure that is correct, many a fellow was fooled by that.
You can actually move the points apart with your fingers and see the amperage vary.
and, is your battery charged up when you checked the voltage?
if it is low, you will see a high voltage/ charge rate, but should not see as high as your reading as posted before by Roland.