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berlingo alternator

A friend has just called with a charging problem on his 52 plate Citroen Berlingo diesel van. Apparently the alternator failed and he has replaced it with a new one. Everything looks good from the driving seat, he says the charge warning light comes on and goes out when he revs the engine, It doesn't charge though. From the engine compartment he measures Voltage as around 12 which only rises slightly with revs, possibly some residual magnetism in the field. When he uses a continuity tester from the positive battery terminal to the field coil the alternator charges at 14V on tickover. He cannot tell me what the ignition light does because he's alone. I'll have a look with him tommorrow.

I imagine the alternator is ecu controlled but is there anything external between the ignition light and alternator to check?

AJH

Reply to
andrew
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check that the big fat lead is actually continuous, I had a very similar fault on a fiesta once, I wasted quite a while before discovering a bad connection where the alternator lead met the starter lead, to save a few pence they share the lead .

Reply to
Mrcheerful

If they didn't you'd have two connections at the battery terminal?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I doubt it's ECU controlled on a van that age.

There should be battery volts at the warning light terminal with the ignition on. Some use a mixture of the bulb and a parallel resistor to achieve this.

Since it's a diesel, has the alternator got a rev counter output? That and the warning light haven't got swapped?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

fords chose to use two leads with a ring terminal each where they bolt onto the starter solenoid. A properly crimped on single terminal at the battery with two leads away from there or a single connector with a bifurcated lead at the starter would have been better.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

I doubt it makes much difference. The main starter terminal is pretty meaty?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

8mm, the problem is that it is right down at the front and gets all the road spray, on the one I mentioned the ring terminal was still there and tight, but actually had no connection through it !
Reply to
Mrcheerful

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