Home  |  Forums  |  914 Info  |  Blogs
 
914World.com - The fastest growing online 914 community!
 
Porsche, and the Porsche crest are registered trademarks of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. This site is not affiliated with Porsche in any way.
Its only purpose is to provide an online forum for car enthusiasts. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
 

Welcome Guest ( Log In | Register )

> Alternator Light ON most of the time, How do I determine what's wrong?
ThinAir
post Sep 25 2007, 11:48 PM
Post #1


Best friends
****

Group: Members
Posts: 2,564
Joined: 4-February 03
From: Flagstaff, AZ
Member No.: 231
Region Association: Southwest Region



I HATE electrical problems!!!! Okay, with that out of the way... here's the deal.

My car went 800 miles round trip for Red Rock Classic with no problems at all. When I shut the engine off in the driveway I had no glowing alternator light. A couple of hours later I start it up to move the car and the alternator light is on. I ran the car some to try and determine if it was really on or just glowing and discovered that the light went out and seemed to be tied to the engine rpms.

Well I've tried to tighten the belt, but have gotten no different results. Most of the time when I drive the voltmeter is sitting just under 12 volts and the light is glowing dimly, but if I am idling the light is on strong. Once in awhile the light will go out and the voltmeter will show 14 volts, but there is no consistency to it.

The AA Tech Tips book says this:
Condition:
Light off with key off
Light on with key on
Light glows dimly when car is running
Problem:
Bad diode in alternator or bad ground

Since tightening the belt has not made a difference, it seems like it must be one of these things. The question is how do I tell what it is?

Since the car starts consistently I know that the tranny ground strap is well connected and that's been confirmed. Since the alternator grounds to the engine case, where else could there be a bad ground?
User is offlineProfile CardPM
Go to the top of the page
+Quote Post
 
Reply to this topicStart new topic
Replies
ThinAir
post Sep 29 2007, 02:27 PM
Post #2


Best friends
****

Group: Members
Posts: 2,564
Joined: 4-February 03
From: Flagstaff, AZ
Member No.: 231
Region Association: Southwest Region



So... along the way I found this topic by Brad Anders in which he states that his alternator had a bad ground. Since this is one of the possible causes cited by AA in the 700 tips book, I'm wondering what this is. The alternator is grounded to the engine, which is grounded through the tranny ground strap - if this is all connected properly, what else is there?

BTW the Richard Atwell page that Brad references is an incredible resource. I'd forgotten about his site.
User is offlineProfile CardPM
Go to the top of the page
+Quote Post

Posts in this topic


Reply to this topicStart new topic
1 User(s) are reading this topic (1 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)
0 Members:

 



- Lo-Fi Version Time is now: 10th May 2025 - 02:29 AM