Delco Want Go!

I have a delco #615 and I noticed some of you folks said not to run this engine untill its hooked up to a battery to regulate its out put. So I wired back the 4 brushes so there was no contact to the generator because all I want right now is to get the engine running - Is this O.K.?? The next ?? is when I wire up a coil to the engine I can get a puff every now and then but I dont have a crank handle to give it a good spin. Where might I find an original crank handle? Plus Thanks to all of you who helped me on my last question! Thanks Shane

I'm not an electrical technician so I won't advise you to run or not run you engine without the batteries. I've done it a lot with no apparent harm, what you do is up to you. Best advice, put the brushes back, yank the battery out of your pickup, your wifes car and the lawn mower, hook them up in series and then to your genset and let the generator do all the work for you. Once you set it to spinning you can fool around with the choke/ whatever until it fires. Hand cranking an old generator is kinda like pushing a car up hill to catch it in gear.

The DC generator on your Model 615 Delco operates as a DC motor when you run the 32 volt battery current back thru it. That makes an electric start engine. If you run MOST Delcos without them charging the battries they tend to run too fast. There is a small jet in the fuel mixer and it is designed to run your generator at a set speed under the generating load. The Model 615 is designed to charge properly at 1400 RPM. If you are using a 12v battery connected to the coil as the directions tell you to, it won't work. The coil has a voltage droping resitor on top of it to drop the 32v to around 4v. It just works a lot better for the Delcos, to use 32 volts, or you can get by with 36 volts, and hook it up as intended by Delco. If the comutator is cleaned well and the brushes are well seated and it will run as a started it should charge properly if every thing is hooked up right.

I hope this will help all you Delco owners that might be having trouble with them.

"DELCO DON"