[Vwdiesel] Moving on and alternators

[Sandy Cameron]

At 04:54 AM 11/17/05 +0000, you wrote:

>My alternator doesn't seem to be charging, after several days the battery 
>won't start the car

First thing to check , Is the belt tight enough...sounds simple but we've
all been caught by this.

Just last week, someone with the same problem found the nut holding the
split pulley was loose!

Check for bad/broken lugs at both ends of the alternator cable, and
especially that the grounding is good to the support bracket. maybe take it
off, buff up the contact areas and re-install.

As someone recently said, remove the regulator and buff up the areas where
the regulator ground tab touches the alternator body. Also clean the contact
where the regulator contacts the spring inside the alternator, clean the
spring too. I had one go bad there early in the year.

Failure of a main diode/s will cause your symptoms, the diodes that feed the
regulator are separate from those that feed the battery terminal (well 3 out
of 6  of them are)
Failure of one output diode will allow a bit of charging, but not much.

If the lower 3 main diodes and the 3 separate regulator diodes are OK, the
regulkator light will go out, but the alt. wont charge.

Sounds more like a slipping belt if you can get a few days out of it at a
time, with a recharge.

Sandy