There were various different unreliabilities that popped up, sometime intermittently.
The biggest issue was with starting. It would start fine a 2-3 times in a 2 hour period, but once you went over that point, it didn't want to start. Seemed like it was cranking fine, but a little extra spark/juice IMHO would've popped it off. As I said before the brushes on the generator were originally full of surface rust, but I cleaned those up with some fine sandpaper and since then the generator seemed to work the way it was intended. Talking to the local generator shop guy, he said that at their peek output they are only kicking out just enough to keep the 6v battery stable, say somewhere around 6.2v. I also talked to him about the starter issue if changing it over to a 12v and he said that the damage done/life expectancy lost would be virtually unnoticable. One of the other things I noticed late in the year when cranking the car was that the battery cable going to the starter was very hot and the plastic coating was melting at the very base. I checked all of the connections/grounds, and they were solid.
I also had issues with running lights, specifically in the tail section. My brake lights worked intermittently, as did my turn signals, and the two white lights didn't work at all. I tried changing bulbs as well as fixing the grounds to the lights which are basically grounded by the housing. Fixing the grounds seemed to help some, but not enough for the reliability I am after. I would think everything was fine and fixed, I'd end up driving home, only to get home and find out that I didn't have any taillights the whole way. Then the next day, the lights would be working properly, without having done anything different.
The radio in the car doesn't even work, but according the previous owner it had been working. So 1) either something happened to the radio internally or 2) something happened somewhere in the wiring to the radio. I've looked around under the dash and haven't found any loose/broken wires.
I also had some issues with some fuses at the firewall and the wiring associated with them. We also had other various wiring issues. I.E. we were checking wires that should've been hot, but were not, for whatever reason, we couldn't figure out.
So now....to me, with all the different issues, when I look at the cost and time to track everything down and fix everything with 6v, I think I'm probably going to come out ahead in the time category fairly significantly if I just convert things over to 12v and run new wiring that I know isn't broken in some hidden location. I'm not afraid to part with a little cash to save a headache and to give me peace of mind that I'm not going to have to constantly limp something along.
With these issues and what I've said in mind, Which do you think is worth pursuing the 6v or 12v?
Thanks,
Rusty
P.S. - I did call Generator Specialty here in St. Paul, and he gave me some other things to try first, much like you all have. I'm going to probably hold off on doing anything until mid-late March, since this weekend it's supposed to be -45 windchills here and I don't have the nice heated garage just yet
But I will keep you updated on my progress, and most certainly will be bouncing things off of all of you. Thanks again for your help.