GTV6 alternator light flicker

["Graham Hilder" <graham.hilder@domain.elided>]

In Digest 113, Luke asked about his GTV6 alternator light flicker. ("It =
has always glowed a bit if I drove down a street with no lights, but now
it is coming on and off. It seems to come on more at higher revolutions, =
and it pretty much goes off at idle").

Have you got it fixed yet Luke?  If not, it sounds to me like the classic =
Alfa charge light symptom where the light glows faintly, increasing with  =
revs or load, but the system is in fact producing charge. This effect is =
due to an imperfect connection somewhere in the charge lamp path (which is =
also the alternator field drive path), usually dirty fuse and fuseholder =
which are in this path.   I have had this same symptom from time to time =
on most of my Alfas and it's always been this effect rather than a real =
charging problem, so you may well be lucky too.

However, Luke also wrote "The voltage measured at the battery is 17V with =
engine off, and 15.3 with the engine idling."  Oh boy, something amiss =
here...... presumably a crook multimeter, as you shouldn't ever see 17V on =
your battery with engine off.  And if the voltage (whatever its value =
really is) drops when the engine's running, maybe there really is a =
charging problem. However, I guess the first thing would be to grab a =
known good meter and recheck the static and running voltages, then we can =
carry on, depending on what values we find there.  =20
=20
Best regards,
Graham in NZ
(77 Alfetta, 71 GTV, 82-82-84 Alfasuds)

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