John M McIntosh wrote:
A week back my son discovered, the hard way, that he left the rear
hatch lamp on in the 83 300TDt for a few days.
That led him to an AAA call at 2 am after arrival at the airport (fun
fun fun), it was driven for a couple of hours
after the boost, say with the A/C on, fan on high, headlamps on, fogs
on, perhaps the aux fan on/off.
However yesterday I grab said car and ran some errands and notice the
starter was a bit, a lot, sluggish.
Checking with the charger at home said the battery was at like 20%,
it took about 7 hours on a 10amp charge cycle
to bring to 100%.
I'm wondering here what the alternator output is and with everything
running you'd only expect a few amps of
charging taking the battery from 0 to 20% over a couple of hours, and
a few startup cycles.
Measure the VOLTAGE at the battery with the engine idling and at
1500-2000 rpm. Should be at least 13.4 V at idle and at least 13.8 at
higher RPM. To fully charge a DEAD battery can take several hours and a
couple of starts can double or triple that.
A failing alternator regulator (one that has about 150kmi on it will be
ready to fail) is a potential cause as is a loose alternator belt.
Marshall
--
Marshall Booth (who doesn't respond to unsigned questions)
"der Dieseling Doktor" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
'87 300TD 182Kmi, '85 190D 2.0 161Kmi, '87 190D 2.5 turbo 237kmi, '84
190D 2.2 229Kmi (retired)
