JamesAtthews
New member
Hi All
I have a problem with my forg, whic revolves around the charging system. I hit a speed bump when it was -4C two weeks ago, and the alternator faulty warning came up on the dashboard. I got the car recovered by the RAC, with the man adamant about it being the alternator.
With him there, I pulled on the main cable which runs from the alternator to the battery, and his multimeter started reading 14.5V, so all good, broken/ fractured charge cable. I have replaced this, charged the battery and it is still the same. I pulled on the cable, the alternator kicked into life and I drove for 2 miles before the alternator stopped working again, with associated message.
Now the alternator is only 2 years old, and was a brand new magnetti marelli unit, when fitted. I have checked the cables and their anchor points on the alternator, and noticed that the field wire (grey & white striped cable) only reads 7.5V ish when ticking over, but I would expect something a lot closer to what the battery is kicking out, in order to magnetise the alternator and allow it to give some output.
Does anybody have any idea what voltage this field wire should give, so that I can eliminate this wire as the possible cause of the problem, or not, depending on voltage. If anyone happens to have a wiring diagram of the charging system for this mysterious beast, or at least an idea of where this wire comes from and goes to, then I would be eternally grateful.
The next process would be to look at the internals of the alternator, e.g. the regulator, are there any easy tests that I can carry out to establish the likelihood of the regulator being goosed?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have a problem with my forg, whic revolves around the charging system. I hit a speed bump when it was -4C two weeks ago, and the alternator faulty warning came up on the dashboard. I got the car recovered by the RAC, with the man adamant about it being the alternator.
With him there, I pulled on the main cable which runs from the alternator to the battery, and his multimeter started reading 14.5V, so all good, broken/ fractured charge cable. I have replaced this, charged the battery and it is still the same. I pulled on the cable, the alternator kicked into life and I drove for 2 miles before the alternator stopped working again, with associated message.
Now the alternator is only 2 years old, and was a brand new magnetti marelli unit, when fitted. I have checked the cables and their anchor points on the alternator, and noticed that the field wire (grey & white striped cable) only reads 7.5V ish when ticking over, but I would expect something a lot closer to what the battery is kicking out, in order to magnetise the alternator and allow it to give some output.
Does anybody have any idea what voltage this field wire should give, so that I can eliminate this wire as the possible cause of the problem, or not, depending on voltage. If anyone happens to have a wiring diagram of the charging system for this mysterious beast, or at least an idea of where this wire comes from and goes to, then I would be eternally grateful.
The next process would be to look at the internals of the alternator, e.g. the regulator, are there any easy tests that I can carry out to establish the likelihood of the regulator being goosed?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.