Putting the switch in the centre position won’t disable the charging circuit. Positioning it in the lower position does.(or upper, depending on how your switch is installed)
Your switch is installed 180 degrees opposite of any of mine, with respect to the position of the large battery terminal. Its also rotated 90 degrees with respect to the terminals where the battery connects. Your terminals face the starboard side, mine are facing the bow or operator side. All my Owen-Dyneto units have the switch installed so that you have to pull the switch bar upwards to activate it – not push it downwards like yours. I don’t have my Sr Speedster electric handy to check it tho, so I can’t say if that one is set up the same as yours..
To review – on both of my Super C’s, Lockwood Chief, and model 315 Quad with E/S – bottom position is where the switch should be when the motor is off. Opposite end position activates the starter and gets the motor going. Centre position is where you’d place it IF you want the charging circuit to activate and provide current for lights, or to recharge the battery.
One thing to keep in mind – my Super C’s are 1931 motors with a key switch to shut the motor down. I can run them with the starter switch in the “OFF” position, and the motor still works. Your Senior Speedster relies on the position of the starter switch to keep it going. You probably have no option but to run in the centre position in order to keep electrical current supplied from the battery to the ignition system.
Thus, you have to run with the switch in the middle, which is where the charging circuit will be operational. Form what I gather, you want to run but not have the charger part kick in. In order to do that, you have to isolate or disconnect it entirely.
With my two electric-start Super C’s, I used a different method on each one out of necessity.
The first one, I disconnected the lead going to the voltage regulator and grounded the field coil…. which worked great. The starter function works, the charging circuit does not.
On the second one – using the previous method caused a dead short resulting in fireworks occurring beneath the magneto plate when the engine fired up. So I settled for merely disconnecting the field coil lead from the voltage regulator, and isolating it from any contact with a metal surface by wrapping it securely with electrical tape and also by stabilizing is so it can’t move around. This accomplished the goal of nut activating the charging circuit AND avoiding the electrical arcing beneath the point plate.
The main reason I deactivate the charging circuit is because of the possibility that the voltage regulator points fuse together, which will cause the rotor windings to overheat and eventually, heat up to the point where the solder begins melting, which will be followed by the subsequent rapid and irreversible destruction of the rotating element. I suspect that this phenomenon is the reason that so many Owen-Dyneto units suffered an early death, and were usually replaced with the conventional ignition systems.
Hope this helps.
Best,
PM T2
He's livin' in his own private Idaho..... I hope to go out quietly in my sleep, like my grand-dad did..... and not screaming, like the passengers in his car...
