Hi Bob:
Long time since I read a post from you here.
I see you have been hidding out in the otherpower forum.
How is life treating you these days?

Contactors:
Run a pony relay to something large and industrial with a 120V coil.

I am very fond of CCL products, they made some very robust DC contactors in the days before Silvania bought them and run the line into the ground. Some I serviced quite recently where over 50 years old with plenty of life left in them. Best place to find somethng like that would be a crane company that services large DC cranes. Your going to say to me But Doug I want an AC unit.... These old DC contactors don't care they are tough as nails and will tollerate anything.

Ya thats tough without the right test equip.

I was once told by an old timer back inthe day they would use a low wattage light bulb connect the frame of the machine to a white ( common wire ) and touch the leads of the winidngs with hot lead. The light bulb being in series of course.....
If the bulb lit this would indicate there was a ground. ( this was with an extension cord plugged into a wall socket light bulb in series with the hot. get what I mean? )

I however would not sugest you do this for liability reasons ( I don't wana get sued if you screw up )

You more likely have an internal short thats between winding and not a ground. The machine will growl like hell when this happens.
The correct thing to use is a surge comparason tester but they don't drop out of trees.....

Something that can pass a high frequency pulse into the open ended winding and a scope to see the reflected wave might tell you something if you knew before hand what it shoudl have looked like........

I'm talking shit now nothing in the last 3 lines much help.

Resistance bridge would see the difference from one winding to the other but a regular multy meter is probably not sensative enough.

I will think about this more and get back to you

Some confusion comes from colours.

In India black is often " earth "....

A long long time ago in England  black was earth but this changed when they  adopted a lot of the EU and IEC standards.....

An AC generator ( alternator ) has a high internal impeadence. So if nothing else changes as far as RPM is concerned AND you don;t increase the field current volatge will naturlay droop as load increases.

Thats where having a resistor tap and possibly a cap in your Field circut come into play to help tune and adjust. So you need to get your governer working as well as possible and adjust your field current if needed. Some might even go so far as to use an aftermarket AVR.

Link for Equine

http://www.andoria.com.pl/?pid=46

There is a very simmilar engine still made in Poland we were just discussing before you joined.

Some might be willing to buy one of these but untill you came along there was no one we could talk to about accessing these engines from Central Eroupe.

Yes I like Tom's idea.

Perhaps there is a preservation group around that would be interested is saving the rest Sid.