I would check with a different meter or make sure the meter is calibrated.

is the ground to the chassis good?

On some electric start machines the regulator and rectifier are combined to provide for charging the battery but on manual starts there is no need for a rectifier. As was mentioned,check all wiring and grounds and if there is still a problem,replace the regulator.

I was reviewing the repair manual for my 1970 Panther (provided by this forum!) and found something interesting....
The manual start panther with 303 Wankel (which I have) shows no voltage regulator. What they discuss is having a 25watt resistance in parallel with the lighting circuit. This, apparently, is the "regulator."
Also no rectifier. So with my system providing 25volts, I simply unsoldered the collar on my burned out head light and stuck it on a 24volt tail light bulb. It provides enough light to be seen by.
What I am going to do long term is get some ballast resistors and put them in parallel with the new bulb.

http://www.vintagesnow.com/Arctic_Cat_files/1971.pdf
I found these to be interesting too.

25w+60w+4w+4w=93w
(25/93)*(93/12)=2amps
12/2=6ohm resistance
25watt 6ohm resistance should be whats in the magic box.
BPJ

webman has a Pantera diagram on his site
http://www.vintagesnow.com/Arctic-cat.html

Steve,
Webman has .PDFs on his site that blow up nicely. I already posted a link to my Wankel Panther's diagram. Just sniff around those pages and you'll find it.
BPJ

I beat apart this voltage regulator from a Elan Twin. Its a single wire.
Looks like all it had was a length of carbon mounted on a heat sink.
BPJ





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I bought this "universal regulator" for $17 locally yesterday. It fits a 250twin Elan perfectly. Sorry about the picture size...BPJ







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Ok these are the power resistors that I ordered from Mouser. They are 25watt 25OHM. I use them in place of the "universal regulator" that costs $20. These cost $3.00 a piece and have a real serious heat sink. BPJ

Electric start systems are like automotive systems in the sense that they have a provision for rectifying the current to DC for battery charging. They still have no field winding that can be shut off and on to regulate voltage. Thats what the resistor does.
If you look at the parallel circuits and add up the resistances while dividing by the number of parallel circuits you can get the equivalent resistance of the total circuit. Knowing what the wattage of the lighting coil is and subtracting the various wattages of the bulbs, you can find the wattage the resistor needs to dissipate. If we set a target voltage of 14.7 AC for the circuit we can find the range of resistances of the "regulator" that will keep the target voltage and dissapate the right number of watts.
Like PWUstrack wrote, it is a matter of keeping those bulbs in working order, or else one has a cascade of failure.
Elan74

dear steve,
Have you seen this?
http://www.vintagesnow.com/Arctic_Cat_files/1975.pdf

As far as the other, if you want to see why, all you have to know is that the original voltage regulators used in pull start engines of the late sixties and early seventies WERE resisters. I was merely writing about replacing the expensive $20 regulator with a $3.00 part. Obviously this is for something like a rider or rat ride, not a restoration.
As for the Pantera, perhaps you could take a photograph of the trouble area and post it?
Elan74