'66 Midget generator problems

The bearings in my old generator went out so I bought and installed a new one today. My ignition light comes on and will not go out. I have made sure the belt was tight enough. I also followed the test procedures in my shop manual for the generator. Either I did the test wrong, or the generator is bad, unless there is a step in installing the generator as I am new to MG's and have not worked with positive ground vehicles. I was also told something about polarizing the generator. Does anybody know what that is? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Wow. You've sent me back some years. It has been years since I worked on anything with a generator. To polarize you touch a wire between two terminals. But I can't get the picture to come through in my feeble mind about which two. I think it's battery and field, but I'm just not sure and doing it wrong might damage your generator. I'll bet Tom B. will know as soon as he reads your post, so just hang on for a little bit before you do anything and I'm sure someone will know the exact terminals for sure.
Ed

The manufacture should have included some instructions on polarizing the Gen. I believe all the manuals show how to do it. Almost evertime you disconnect your battery for any long period of time it needs to be done.

I just wanted to post something tonight. If Ed is stumped on an electrical problem, then his advice to wait for Tom's advice is correct. Ed was kind enough to let me watch him do a Weber carb conversion on his stunningly beautiful russet brown 79 b a couple weeks ago. Hard to stump an electrical engineer! Thanks again Ed. You're a good teacher. Sorry about the Hokies in the Sugar Bowl.

Ed's got it. Hot post of battery or any hot wire to the field terminal of the generator. Just strike it like striking a match a couple of times. "Flashing the fields" magnetically polarizes the the field shoes and they become weak perminate magnets. This residual magnetizmthen initializes the flux cutting which causes the generator to start charging.

I looked in Bentley and couldn't find a reference to polarizing, though it could be lost in the English. I remember polarizing MOPAR products when replacing the voltage regulators, but don't recall ever doing it to a Lucas product. (Not that I didn't, or you shouldn't, I just don't recall).

I though the polarization was right but wasn't exactly sure I remembered correctly which terminals. My '47 Plymouth (stock) coupe has a generator.

Sam, thanks for the kind words. And the Hokies could have won - maybe next year, if they have enough players to field a team

I got the lift finished during the Christmas break -- when you get ready to do your brake work, let me know - We can do yours fairly easily now. I used the lift to do the re-installation of the exaust. Sure was easier than taking it off - wait maybe it wasn't - I remember that Rikki took it off.

Ed

One addition to these posts --- The hot post of the battery in a positive ground system is the negative post. I'm sure you know that, but I just thought I would add that to Johns comments.

Ed