Dash lights

[Kurt Mueller]

Agree!

the alternator seems to be the trouble 90% of the time!

I agree to this point. Here's a little story: Unknowingly I had trouble with my alternator as well. First there was this x-mas tree effect on my dash, then the lights went dim and the motor stalled leaving me stranded on the motorway. The battery was dead! So the next day I swapped in a new one, that blew after few KMs again. Man at the shop measured a voltage far over 14.7V at high revs and told me to swap the alternator, so I bought a new alt to the new bat. At disassembling the old alt, I found a thin loose wire leading to the alternator. That was the feedback line to the voltage regulator. So without a reference the relay didn't limit and blew 100% from the alternator into the system an lit all the candles. After mending the wire all problems were gone and I took the new alternator back to the shop. Only the loss of two batteries hurt a bit...

Cheers
Kurt

 

[SteveO1997]

Sounds like a headache boys...

Just started to happen on my cruiser as well (1997 80 series diesel 360,000 KM's). Sounds like a job of the auto sparking to me!?
My I ask did you guys still drive your vehicles while experiencing these issues (I have to head out of town tomorrow and wont be able to get repaired prior) but don't want to cause any ongoing issues by driving before repairing!

 

[frank rabbets]

Depends on your particular fault but I drove mine and I have not heard any problems. Your batteries may not be charging though.