Maybe I spoke a little too soon when I said "it works fine" regarding
my new alternator.
The car in question is my '79 504 Diesel, 4-sp. manual.
The in-dash charging indicator drops down into the red whenever the
engine idles with the headlights on, and if any accessories (heater
fan, wipers, etc.) are on in addition to the headlights, the indicator
drops into the red even with the car at cruising speed, on the freeway.
I swapped in a known good battery from my other 504 and cleaned the
battery terminal connections, but there was no improvement.
I measured negligible or zero resistance between the alt body and
engine block, alt body and batt -terminal, alt +terminal and batt
+terminal, alt +terminal and starter solenoid +terminal, and starter
solenoid +terminal and battery +terminal. With the engine at idle, no
accessories on, I measured ~15V at alt and 14.7v at batt and the indash
charging indicator read normal. With the engine at idle, all
accessories on, I measured ~14.5V at alt and ~13.2V at batt and the indash
charging indicator was into the red. With the engine at 1500rpm,
all accessories on, I measured ~15.5V at alt and ~15V at batt, but the
in-dash indicator was well into the red. During all these tests, the
voltages measured between alt body & engine block, alt body & battery -
terminal, and alt +terminal and batt +terminal were all negligible,
well under 1V.
It seems to me that the charging system is healthy, but the car was
behaving this way when I bought it, and slowly got worse and worse
until the alt would not charge the battery even at freeway speeds. I
drove it from CA to WA like this. I had to roll-start the car one
morning on that trip, because the battery didn't have the juice to
turn the engine over. Thankfully, diesels only need electricity to
keep the fuel solenoid open and, of course, for accessories and lights.
Anyway, there is obviously something that I need to learn about
charging systems. Could my voltage regulator be bad? Or is the indash
thermal voltmeter being a liar? It seemed accurate on that first
long trip, doing a good job of telling me that I was not charging my
battery!
Thanks for all your suggestions!
Chris Lee
Seattle, WA
'78 504D
'79 504D
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Received on Wed Feb 1 20:42:15 2006
