Battery terminals (alternator / charging) Summary: clean em
Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 8:10 am
Had a problem with my new bongo.
Seemed the battery was "marginal". Voltage on the battery never got over 12.1v - even with the engine running, in fact with the engine running the voltage kept dropping.
Then I put a DC current clamp on and watched as 30A was drawn for the glowplugs - a huge surge went out as it turned... and then 30A went out (glow plugs still) while the engine was running - nothing was coming in. After 10 minutes the glow plug current dropped off, but there was still 3-5A going _out_ of the battery. All this at idle.
So I was then figuring the problem was one coil of the alternator or the diodes associated with it. Was about to start sorting that out with my Bongo supplier...
... when I figured that I should clean up the posts and terminals. Bit of wire wool later and suddenly I get 13.2-14v while the engine is running, and current flow _into_ the battery! Yey everything is hunky dory, and that alarm with remote start (Falcon EV04+) works fab.
So clean your terminals - probably worth doing once a year anyway.
And big thanks to those on here who gave me hints about finding RPM signals (Simon etc). Also managed to feed a speedo signal to my new stereo and just loving the automatic volume increase as the engine/road noise increases with speed. yey!
Seemed the battery was "marginal". Voltage on the battery never got over 12.1v - even with the engine running, in fact with the engine running the voltage kept dropping.
Then I put a DC current clamp on and watched as 30A was drawn for the glowplugs - a huge surge went out as it turned... and then 30A went out (glow plugs still) while the engine was running - nothing was coming in. After 10 minutes the glow plug current dropped off, but there was still 3-5A going _out_ of the battery. All this at idle.
So I was then figuring the problem was one coil of the alternator or the diodes associated with it. Was about to start sorting that out with my Bongo supplier...
... when I figured that I should clean up the posts and terminals. Bit of wire wool later and suddenly I get 13.2-14v while the engine is running, and current flow _into_ the battery! Yey everything is hunky dory, and that alarm with remote start (Falcon EV04+) works fab.
So clean your terminals - probably worth doing once a year anyway.
And big thanks to those on here who gave me hints about finding RPM signals (Simon etc). Also managed to feed a speedo signal to my new stereo and just loving the automatic volume increase as the engine/road noise increases with speed. yey!
