generator trouble

[Lucky]

I'm hoping to tap into the knowledge tree here. I appear to have a short in my generator. With the ignition turned off the generator makes a quiet crackling sound and the "hot" wire is HOT. The battery goes dead if left connected. It does still give 14.4 volts when running. I've never had anything with a genny before so am looking for ideas/suggestions on what might be causing this and if a rebuild would take care of it.

Thanks
Paul

[JD440ICD2006]

I am not the expert but I run generators on all of my antique stuff.
A generator wants to act like an electric motor when power is applied to it. It could be that your voltage regulator has points that are sticking. If they stick, they feed battery power back to the generator, thus making it want to turn. That will drain a battery every time.
Also, make sure everything is wired properly and that all wires have good insulation and are not shorted somewhere.
Let us know what it ends up being.

[Tractor 850]

First of all,

DISCONNECT THE BATTERY, NOW!

Before you have crawler flambe
Then trouble shoot the problem.

[jdemaris]

I'm hoping to tap into the knowledge tree here. I appear to have a short in my generator. With the ignition turned off the generator makes a quiet crackling sound and the "hot" wire is HOT. The battery goes dead if left connected. It does still give 14.4 volts when running. I've never had anything with a genny before so am looking for ideas/suggestions on what might be causing this and if a rebuild would take care of it.

Thanks
Paul

I don't know what machine you're working on - but it sounds like the cut-out relay in the reguator is not "cutting out" any more.