Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:45:38 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Alternator question
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
it's worth it to quickly take out the voltage regular/brush holder gizmo ..
two screws.
sometimes you'll see very short brushes and you know that's likely the
problem.
and you can try both voltage regulators in each of your alternators ..
fair chance of getting one working with the parts you have that way.
the voltage regulator is such a small light part ..
and often the part that wears first in an alternator. It's very worth
having a known good spare on board the van for trips or local use alternator
misbehavior.
I have kinda a neat spare alt to carry ...
it's a factory new, not rebuilt, 65 amper ( from a new german 1.9 td
engine ) that mounts like the common 90 amp alt ..
so it's smaller to carry as a back-up , and bolts right on, and can keep me
going if the regular one acts up.
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hanson" <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2011 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: Alternator question
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 1:41 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net>
> wrote:
>
>> At 03:36 PM 3/27/2011, Greg Potts wrote:
>>
>>> After all of this it appears I had a bad spare alternator. It looks
>>> brand new but has been sitting on the shelf for a couple years and
>>> my local rebuilder recommends against that. When I ground the blue
>>> wire I get a light on the dash. My ammeter reads about .2A of
>>> current when placed between the blue wire and ground.
>>>
>>
>> I can't imagine why an alternator would go bad sitting on the shelf,
>> but you have just described a correctly working ALT light circuit, so
>> if the connection is good that puts it down to the alternator.
>>
>> But make certain it's not a subtle connection problem.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> d
>>
> A few days ago I took my 'extra' alternator to one of the chain
> Autoparts
> stores for their "free electrical testing" service. We have O'reily's
> (used
> to be Shuck;s) here in the Northwest. The counter guy looked it up in his
> book, then went to a fancy computer console/machine with it, and using a
> touch screen...picked all the proper plugs and pigtails out of various
> drawers. He mounted it in the machine and it spun up, giving him
> readouts,
> again according to the touch screen for that particular alternator (90amp
> Bosch from a 93 2-liter Jetta)
>
> It took about 5 minutes total. Free service. I watched pretty closely,
> expecting to be told..."Oh, sorry, this alternator is bad, but we have one
> in stock that we'll sell you" I also was curious to see if this counter
> clerk actually knew anything...The machine mostly did everything for the
> clerk..and it gave a readout according to the specs in the program for
> each
> alternator...
>
> So I'm going to install that alternator into my van now, knowing it
> tested
> good, rather than go to all the work of changing out my 'weak' one only to
> find the Jetta one was faulty.
>
> Might be worthwhile to take your spare, or both over to one of those
> Autoparts stores and get it tested..
| 
