Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 05:48:00 GMT From: "Baine" <thompsbbnopsamo.com> Subject: Re: Your thoughts appreciated - relationship may hang in the balance
Your boyfriend should just be happy to have a girl with enough mechanical aptitude to know an alternator from a battery. Frankly, my fiance doesn't do much other than curse my '86 9000 turbo, let alone care about fixing anything wrong with it. She's a beautiful, sweet girl, and I love her, but she drives a Saturn (automatic, no less), and thinks it's great. As for my opinion on your problem; I'd vote alternator. The brushes inside the alternator can wear away in wierd ways, and produce strange, intermittent electrical problems (yes, the alternator light would come on, then it would go off, then come on again...) before finally giving out alltogether. At least that was my experience with my '86 9kt (I think the '88 900's use the same alternator). My car ate a couple of batteries in as many months before I looked a little closer at the problem, and realized that it was probably the alternator, took it to a local indy (the alternator is harder to get to on a 9000 than on a 900), and had the problems solved. Good luck! "Charlotte Henson" <charlottenopsamme.wi.mit.edu> wrote in message news:3CAD17D1.7262C988nopsamme.wi.mit.edu... > > I would love to know whether you think I'm right or my boyfriend is: > > He has an '88 900t. Something was drawing power off the battery so we > installed a battery disconnect under the hood. Thanks to the kind folks > here I learned that the fuses for the no longer functional > active-restraint seatbelts were located under the back seat, they are > there no longer. We started testing to see if that cured the battery > drain and the tests were looking good! > Then Sunday evening the alternator light came on. The boyfriend thinks > that is just a symptom of a whacked-out electrical system, some wires > crossing perhaps. I think the alternator's gone bad. After about 15 > minutes the light goes off. > Today we started the car and the light was on. We drove for about an > hour total before the car died entering its driveway - it was beautiful. > > Here's the question: > I think the alternator/regulator is bad and we got as far as we could on > the battery. > He thinks that the more delicate connection made by the screw in the > disconnect has been corroded and the alternator/battery circuit was > broken that way. > > Who's right? > I agree that the light going off after it first went on supports his > claim, but I believe that if the battery is essentially disconnected > then there is no way the car can draw current to run, that is the whole > reason to *have* the disconnect. > > Tomorrow, in the daylight, we will go re-seat the disconnect. We will > install the other battery and use our friend's voltmeter to check it > both with the car running and off. We will check the voltage across the > alternator. Is there anything else I'm forgetting? > > Thanks for your help, both before and now! > > -Charlotte
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