[Vwdiesel] '82 Jetta charging issue

[LBaird119 at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/5/2008 2:36:26 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
george.allison at gmail.com writes:

> I've now had 3 alternators in the car (original old Motorola, and then
> two rebuilt Bosches from NAPA, the first of which literally exploded
> under the hood on the highway). None of them has ever charged at more
> than about 13.6v, measured at the battery while running with no other
> current consumers turned on. Is that characteristic of VW diesels?
> Every other car I've ever owned was further up in the 14.5 range or
> thereabouts. If that was too low, what would cause it to be
> continually like that -- bad connections? Would that kill the
> alternators as well?
> 
  I've been told of and personally seen issues with NAPA alts 
and starters.  As I recall, my 914 only put out 13.6V to 13.8V 
and it seems VW as well as Audi tend to be close to that as 
well.  On some of the Rabbits there were issues with the alt 
wiring, where it goes across the rad core support.  There were 
several places that sold an "upgrade" wiring harness piece that 
replaced the wiring from the alt to the battery.  As Val 
suggested, check the ground and wiring, connections from the 
alt to the battery.  You may need a ground to the alt.  Use a 
jumper cable to test if it helps.

  The Motorola (and Bosch I think also) have the brushes in the 
regulator pack and are sold as a unit.  If you have access to 
a brush source, you can indeed solder in new ones.  Back when 
a 55A alt was the "big" one, regulators were cheap enough it 
wasn't hardly worth it.
    Loren



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