Alrighty All, I'll try to be brief :roll:
2 Electrical Problems, 1 after the other.
91 Golf 1.6 NA (300k), new alternator, new belt (tightened recently), old wiring.
-I started the car and the battery light stayed on for longer than usual.
-Then it flickered out, however, it came back on as soon as the rpm climbed over 800rpm.
-The light stays on while driving, accept for very low rpm and idle.
-Obviously the battery wouldn't charge, so I charged it between drives. -This behavior resulted in a dead battery (battery was fairly old)
I couldn't quite figure out what was going wrong. The alternator is new. I took out the voltage regulator (brushes) and they look just fine. One would assume that the belt was slipping, however, I assure that it wasn't, I checked it a bunch of times.
*I did potentially do damage to the voltage regulator: when tightening the belt, my wrench bridged some of the points on the back of the regulator to the positive terminal and there was a brief spark. May this have done in the alternator?
THEN:
-I swapped in a fully charged battery to start her up and get her to the shop and she wouldn't crank over at all.
-All accessories work and the glow plugs fired.
-When I twist the key to start, there's no sound at all (no solenoid sound, and certainly no cranking sound).
-This happened about 3 times in the past, however, removing and replacing the positive cable from the battery solved the problem and she started. This time, no such luck.
Any ideas? I suppose I could attempt to bridge the starter to see if there's power going to it. However, are there any connections to check? I had just recently sanded down the grounds.
In any case, any help would be massively appreciated.
All the best,
gratefuljoe
Edmonton, AB
1991 Golf 1.6 NA 300k