H E L P

[Beatty, Robert]

Ok Mike,

You have 4 possible problems...

1.  Worn out/loose alt belt.... cheapest of your problems...verify your belt
is in good shape and tight.  I cant remember the specs from the manual but i
usually lever the alt with a 2' breaker bar to tension it.

2.  Bad voltage regulator.... easiest of the 3 to fix and 2nd cheapest to
fix as well.  New regulator is like 15-20$ i believe and should be at most
auto parts places.  Nice thing about the regulator is its held on with 2
phillips screws, take them off and disconnect the wire and put the new one
in, taking care not to break the carbon brushes when installing it.  Should
take a total of 30 minutes to do including getting your tools together. :)

3.  Bad altenator...  Most expensive but not as big a PITA as #4.  Best way
to check if you need one is to take it to the auto parts place and have them
test it for you.  Not a hard part to remove or install.. replace the belt
while your there as you will be taking it off anyway.

4.  Bad splice in the footwell battery cable.... Not the most expensive, but
definatly wins hands down for being the biggest pain to do.  There is a
sonic welded splice in the battery cable in the passenger side footwell.  It
tends to corrode over time and causes a significant drop in current carring
capacity of the battery cable.  You will need a good piece of battery cable
and a couple of hose clamps big enough to clamp 2 pieces of cable tightly
together.  The best way to determine if this is your problem is to measure
the resistance of the cable from the Alt to the battery should be about a .5
Ohms.  The ground from the battery to Alt should also be .5 ohms or less as
well.

There is plenty of info in the archives on the splice and i belive chris
miller's page has the splice replacement procedure detailed.

Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Williams [mailto:campvw at home.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 8:17 AM
To: quattro at audifans.com
Subject: H E L P


I had a problem with my car this morning. It is an 89 100. It is a rainy
day so when I left for work I had on my wipers, headlights, radio and
heat. As I was going I thought I noticed the dash lights getting dimmer.
Some of the dash lights are burned out but I can normally see the
voltage gauge but I couldn't see it. As I pulled off the Parkway I was
able to shine some light on it and saw that it was below 12v. Not
wanting to get stuck 20 miles away from home I turned around and headed
back. No sooner had I turned around then the battery warning light came
up on the dash and the dash lights got dimmer. On the Parkway back
(praying all the way) the car would sputter, the dash lights would
flicker high and low and other warning lights would flicker on and off.
I think the only thing I was missing was the robot from "Lost in Space"
shouting "WARNING, WARNING!!!". I turned off the headlights but left on
the parking lights, off with the radio and heater and just used the
wipers on an as needed basis. As I was driving the sputtering and light
flickering went away and by the time I got home I was able to put my
lights back on and I could see that the voltmeter was now over 12v.
Ok, what should I be looking for on this. Altenator or Voltage
regulator? I know it was running off the battery but if the altenator
was bad would the battery have recharged itself in the 20 miles back
home? Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated
Thanks
Mike Williams