[Vwdiesel] Alternator - Battery - jumpstart questions

[Milton Kaplan]

I'm confused also. Did Nate send a post? If so I didn't receive it. His
response seems amazingly like mine though haha. By the way I was thinking
of my Dodge van alternator that outputs 14.8 volts. As Loren mentioned,
Bosch/Motorola alternator output voltage is slightly less.

I have an isolator system and when it burned out I tried a "continuous"
solenoid relay instead. If you want to use one, don't use a regular
solenoid relay as they are designed for shorter duration starting motor.

However after a year of use found that the relay contacts developed a
high contact resistance from corrosion or carbon buildup from arcing,
reducing the voltage. Perhaps some relay brands are better than others.
The one used had silver contacts which should have been better. In any
case, put in a heavy duty isolator instead. There is a voltage drop as
mentioned but seems to be more reliable. Try to mount in a somewhat cool
location. Too much heat can kill off the diodes. Used an isolator that
actually had a threaded knob that you turn to connect the batteries
together if the starting battery is weak. Unfortunately this feature not
available on the heavy duty isolators. I advise keeping a set of good
jumper cables in the vehicle.

Speaking of relays, the previous owner had several burned out glow plug
relays and glow plugs in the glove box. He gave up and used starting
fluid---not a good idea. My guess is that a temperature sensor went bad
destroying everything by keeping relay and plugs on all the time. Would
expect a glove box of bad fuses also, but was not the case! When I bought
the vehicle I wanted to make sure the plugs would work so wired in a Ford
generic solenoid starter relay, mounted on the firewall next to fuse and
a small pushbutton in the dash.  This change probably overkill but
starting has been reliable.

Milton.

On Wed, 19 Jun 2002 22:19:21 -0700 Sandy Cameron <scameron at compmore.net>
writes:
> I'm getting confused(easy for me), as to who wrote what to whom on
> the van
>

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