Date:         Sat, 03 Aug 1996 13:51:15 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         dbax@mindspring.com (Donald Baxter)
Subject:      Blue LEDs and cheap rebuilt alternators

I suppose I'll be the guinea pig for the list.  I bought the $89 alternator
for my '85 Vanagon, installed in less than an hour.  The Bosch rebuilt was
$180 from NOPI and only carried a 2 year warranty.  The no-name alternator
that I bought is warranteed for life.  Not too much of a risk here but time
will tell--I could be replacing them yearly.  So far, not only do the LEDs
go out immediately after starting, but they don't flicker at me after the
initial rev that used to make the lights go out completely when I still had
the old alternator installed.  It was the lights coming back on after
revving up the engine that concerned me.

>Date:          Fri, 2 Aug 1996 12:30:58 PDT
>From: "Shawn Wright" <VWNUT@smus.bc.ca>
>To: vanagon@lenti
>Subject: Re: Blue LED's?, Valve adjustment procedure, buslust
>Message-ID: <10DFBB51054@smuslabs.smus.bc.ca>
>
>On 31 Jul 96 at 14:42, William Abbott wrote:
>
>> 
>>     Yep, 80's VW products had something Blue that looked like an LED
>> for high-beams. I always intended to get a 'spare' and see what it was-
>> my guess is a lightbulb with a blue plastic cover. If its an LED, it'll
>> turn ON in micro-seconds, if an incandesent lamp, milliseconds, so  if
>> you're sharp-eyed, or can make a highspeed film or video of it
>> you can tell without sawing the thing apart. An led will conduct only
>> one way (its a diode after all) while a lamp will conduct both ways.
>> 

The blue LEDs are indeed incandescent.  VW used to use a red led for high
beams until NHTSA made them stop (my '81 Dasher/Passat had a red led
indicator).  I was told that there was no such thing as a blue LED and this
is why VW had to go with the bulb and plastic cover.  There is a replacement
procedure in some of the Bentley manuals for these.

Donald Baxter
_________________________________________________________
Donald Baxter  Atlanta, Georgia
404.874-3292 (home)  <dbax@mindspring.com>  
404.447.6831 (work)  <dab1@jhk.com>

_________________________________________________________
"Forget Tara, Atlanta is what you would have if Detroit got its act
Together."

          --Paul Goldberger, "Atlanta is Burning," New York Times