intermittant heavy load on Alternator?

[Nathaniel Merrill]

Thanks for the thoughts all.
As Nathan's back channel post indicated, yes I have investigated the splice but have not actually opened it for lack of suspicion.  perhaps I will.

Alternator is newer - still shiny bright and clean rebuild sticker on it, though I have to dig into the papers to know exactly.  That said, brush pack is brand new, and had no effect on the original case of no charge, that "fixed itself'  - at least most of the time it seems.
Yes, I need to dig into the grounds!
I'll set up my volt meter on the battery for a while and see what that says.


No one had a thought about my load hypothesis?

I realized that if there was a short, and it was before the fuse, pulling the fuse would be no help.




> Subject: Re: intermittant heavy load on Alternator?
> From: kentmclean at comcast.net
> To: feelstranger at hotmail.com
> CC: 200q20v at audifans.com
> Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:27:26 -0500
> 
> (Lemme try this again)
> 
> Feelstranger wrote:
> > Recently, I realized that this intermittent low charge (voltmeter
> > indicates as low as 12 V while running, sometimes more) was
> > accompanied by occasional belt squeals which got me thinking that the
> > low charge was actually a large load on the alt.  
> 
> The 200s have a splice in the cable between the battery and the
> alternator. It's in the passenger footwell. 
> 
> Google the audifans site for more detail. Paste this into the Google
> search box:
> site:audifans.com battery cable splice
> 
> -- 
> Kent McLean
> '91 200 TQA #1, for sale
> '91 200 TQA #2, no name yet
> '94 100 S Avant, "Moody"
> '89 200 TQ, "Bad Puppy", up in smoke
> 

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