Starter/generator bench test

[scootsk]

First my apologies if this has been discussed before. For some reason when I hit the forum search button it closes immediately. But I digress.

My question is, how would I bench test my EZGO starter generator? I have been having intermittent problems the last few years with the generator leg of the component. Last year I finally had 13-14 volts at the battery. My last trip camping the cart went back to its old ways. I'm getting 11.5 at full throttle. I removed the green wire on the regulator and grounded it. Still got 11.5 volts. So that tells me that the starter/generator is bad. I removed it today so that can be replaced but....

1- before I buy a new unit, I would like to test it out of the cart. So how would I do that?
2- the brushes look okay. Would they effect the charging leg of the unit even if the starter works flawlessly?
3-would a bad voltage regulator cause a low voltage reading? I've read that it will usually have a higher reading.
4-did I test the generator right by grounding the green wire off the regulator or was I supposed to ground the wire the green wire was connected to?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!,

[cart around]

Remove the green wire from the regulator. The other end should still be attached to the starter. Then ground that wire. The problem may be that it wan't grounded well enough.

While testing, your voltage should go up to around 18-19 volts.

General rule of thumb is that if it works as a starter, it's working as a generator too. Stranger things have happened though.

It has to spin to test as a generator. The easiest way is to reinstall it. I'm not so sure you would want to take it to a parts store tester.