Earthing/ altenator light

[andybeta]

Hi everybody..........electrics. for a number of years the red ignition altenator light has been glowing faintly althougth there have been no symptoms to explain it such as poor charging of battery, so I've put it down to generally poor earthing and from time to time it bugs me.

The battery is always charged and the lights are fine and it starts first time, when fuel is pumped through to the plugs. It glows a little brighter when I've the heater on and postively glows if I've the wipers, radio and lights on while driving at night. Touching the brake lights causes it to illuminate as well. I'm just curious if anyone has any suggestions as to how to solve this riddle. I've gotten so used to it to the extent that , if it's not faintly glowing, I'll probably be rather concerned.

replies gratefully received,

Andybeta

[Hamish]

Andy,
Don't worry..... they all do that sir :roll: it's perfectly normal :?
I've yet to have a beta that didn't show the symptoms you describe, the warning lights do seem particularly 'sensetive' to any form of load on the electrical system.
The answer does seem to be that (for the most part) the system simply is under-engineered with poor cabling, inadequate earthing and distinct evidence of being built to a price..... :roll:
There are a number of solutions that will alleviate the worry of warning lights coming on; the simplest of which is to put relays in where they haven't previously been fitted (or additional units where the standard ones cannot cope) into much of the 'heavy duty' (for example lights and wipers) wiring. This can present quite a challenge - it took me several weeks to finally summon the courage to hack into the wiring loom :oops: and put relays into the front lights, but it was worth it in a big way with the benefit of better lights and no risk of switch meltdown :mrgreen:
As a first step, I would suggest you do look at all the connectors and overhaul the earths first - but it will still show the same problem :cry:

[chrisc]

Both of mine do that, havent noticed any problems either. Im putting it down to a bad ground somewhere but im not about to rip apart my dash to hunt it down just yet

[andybeta]

As I rather suspected Hamish, thanks for your suggestions. It's not a major prob. and to be honest I've put up with it up for some years now with apparently no ill effects (not me the car, well perhaps a few sleepless nights which is all part of the custodianship of a fine piece of engineering such is the Lancia Volumex), so I'll leave it.

Last year in glancing over the engine whilst it was ticking over, did notice some smoke coming from around the cam cover!! So investigating further found that the a main bundle of wires which should have been secured to the wing had made had come away and met with the supercharger pulley and yikes a bit of oil and grime on the surface of the exposed wire looked ready to ignite!!!!

So Volumex owners check that your cabling is well clear of any of the pulleys around the supercharger or other engine pulleys. The results don't bear thinking about, especially with the fuel line just above!!!!!

Hope you had a good trip Hamish. Would be interested to read of your exploits.

Andybeta

[andybeta]

yeap that's just what I think.

thanks, Andybeta

[Will]

I think this is due to backfeeding through the ignition circuit, and I also seem to remember that there was a simple fix, wish I could remember what is was.
If it is backfeeding, I would assume that the cure would be fitment of a heavy-duty diode, you'd need to take a good look at the WD to figure out where though. Wish I could be more helpful.
-Will

[andybeta]

Thanks for the tip Will, though shall need a bit more information. But not to worry it's not urgent.

Still think it's a bad earth, perhaps the main earth strap that needs a very good contact / replacing or possibly the fuse box.. it's a mine field and can wait.

thanks,

Andybeta

[Wallace]

Don't know if the Beta's the same - but all the juice feeding the fuseboxes on the Monte goes through just a SINGLE connector - which isn't up to the job ! The actual connector is part of one of the multiway plug/sockets joining the looms together. Reasonably easy to replace with a single, heavier duty plug and socket but you really need a decent crimping tool to do it properly !

[Dmitry]

greetings to everybody! The reason to low light of alternator lamp ( in Lancia and many another car) is low valtage (ab.11V, not 14V) in contakt #15 (ignition) on instrument cluster. Then carient go throm alternator L wire (white/black) to #15. Simply way to ligt go away is mount diode anod-to lamp, catod -to alternator in white/black wire. But low voltage in electrical sistem ,then power sistems (wipers, stop signals , heater fan ,revers ligts ) are work, is lowering their efficency. It is beter place thick (6-8 mm*mm) wire from alternator B+ con. through battary+ term to ignition sw #30 terminal (seems to my black 2.5 wire) . Very good if be able place 60A fuse in connection to battary + terminal-it safe and alternator in over-polarity battary and safe in case of short-connection in #30 feed.
ps. Tell my what format of electrical shematic you can reed? It seems to my the best is PCAD and ACCEL .sch format.

[Danrap]

someoene of you have tried this solution posted by Dmitry?
seems to be interesting..
bye

[Pope1]

Which solution, the uprated cable or the diode? Have to say that stupid glowing light annoys me intensely.

[Danrap]

Hi Chris,
both solutions..seems to be so easy to do..

[Pope1]

Yes I think so (if I've understood the instructions correctly). I'm going to try and find time to have a look this week-end and make sure I can locate the right bits.

[Danrap]

I have read on a alfa romeo forum that it's a common problem..
We have to check voltage drop with a multimeter; connect the + of the alternator at the + of battery; the reading must to be of 0,5 volts maximum, with engine at 3000 revs with lights on, wipers on etc..
Idem for the minus.. (- of alternator with - of battery)
In both situations, reading must to be max 0,5 volts; if more, the wires can't support the charge of alternator..

Is always better to change the wire from + of battery at + of generator with a thick one, almost 4 mm diameter..

Chris, your voltmeter in the dash what says?
Mine stay very low, in the left half of the scale, but battery is at 14,3 volts with the engine at 2500 revs (tested with a multimeter). All electric board behind the dash (a veglia borletti unit)is cleaned...

Spaghetti wires... :)
bye

[Pope1]

Not much time for a proper look today. Voltmeter needle tends to sit right on top of the - sign on the gauge. Last time I measured the voltage (battery only) I got about 14V if I remember correctly (idling with lights on) so it sounds pretty similar.

[Jim Keller]

Quick note, like evryone said, that slight glow is normal, the owners manual even mentions it as normal operation, I have never had a Beta that didn't do that :-)

[Pope1]

Agreed Jim but that's what makes it even more annoying. It's very difficult to determine how whether my slight glow is worse than someone else's slight glow or not. I don't remember my previous Beta being as bad as my current one but that's not saying much. It was a very long time ago when I had the other one - they still sold new ones in those days!

Anyway, Dani I measured the voltage at the alternator output today with all the lights on while giving the car a good few revs and I got 13.77 V. Doing the same with the + terminal on the battery I got 13.70 V so I assume the resistance of my cable isn't an issue.

[Jim Keller]

I promise you from personal experiance, when the alternator pukes, it will be very bright! LOL Kinda like the oil presure gauge sitting at or just below the top of the red zone at idle after the engine warms up, when the sensor goes bad, it drops to zero but the light isn't on, when the light sensor goes bad, the gauge will still read, when the oil presure is really a problem, the light will be bright red and the gauge will read zero. They are not very good gauges, as they said in the Autoweek artical on my car, "quirky" ha ha ha

[Pope1]

Thanks Jim. It's amazing how little it takes to get that light really bright, just the blower switch on setting 1 will do it. I think my alternator is fine but I think I've probably got low voltage going to my cluster. Switching lights on (outers only) causes the whole cluster to dim. Winter project maybe.

[Danrap]

The oil sensor gauge have a magnetic field coil that takes the gauge to full left when the resistance DC is about 250 ohm, when the oil pressure is about at 1,5-1,8 bar.
The oil pressure sender of the idiot light have a range of 0 bar(200 ohm) --->0,5 bar (0 ohm)
so the gauge isn't so bad..
The oil light turns on when engine pressure is about 0,3 bar...very useless to me

My Lancia beta coupe with jaeger instruments doesn't have the generator light glowing..
It has a marelli alternator and with all lights on, horns, rear heater, wipers etc.. the light of generator is perfectly off..
Maybe there are some differences between veglia and jaeger instrument...

My 2 cents,
dan

sorry for my poor english

[Pope1]

Hey Dan your English is fine and I could not even begin to write any Italian. Sounds like there is a HUGE difference with your instruments.

I'm still going to take my cluster out when I have time and check all the connections going into it. There is a lot of scope for contact resistance there.

[Danrap]

Thank you Chris
I've seen that the Veglia Borletti ones, makes a lot of rust in the washers of the screws of instruments cluster; more rust, more resistance :)
The washers are very very thin if you want to renew it; if thicker washers used, the instruments read always too low (fuel, oil pressure, voltmeter,oil temp,water temp), if no washers used, the instruments gauges will go soon at the full scale (too low resistance in the magnetic coil)
The jaeger instruments are always rust free but the rev counter, oil pressure engine are always more "slow" to response..

[Jim Keller]

Yes Dan. I aggree with Chris, yuour english is fine. Being someone who only speaks english, I am alsways amazed at the talents of someone who is multi-lingual (:-)
When I got my first "good" 82 Beta Zagato, I used to sweat bullets when I would sit on a cold rainy evening at a stop light with defrosters on high, headlights on, wipers going and turn signals flashing as that dang alternator light would flash brightly with the turn signals pulse. I cleaned and replaced connections until the cows came home and never did get it much better. Then I ran accross the statement in the owners manual that it was normal. I never did have any trouble with batteries running down or anything, but it never hurts to get all connections cleaned up and or repaired

[PAV]

my to-block ground popped off of the Alternator, broke causing an almost zero charge condition. The thing is that it did not completely come out of the connector on the Alternator, well a couple of small tugs fixed that, Snap! I just got another connectoer, cleaned the wire, crimped it, screwed it on!
Some Italian cars have very interesting and challenging wiring. You should consider mulitple ground straps, engine to Chassis to Battery to chassis what ever it takes, GROUND that baby!

[Pope1]

Multiple grounds - been there, done that. :)

The street racers reckon they help their rice rockets go faster and I figured it couldn't do any harm given what our electrics are like.

[PAV]

Better to err on the side of redundancy.
If it works on aircraft, it may be a good idea to up spec anything possible on our cars. Something about a dead car on a shoulderless freeway which pushes me to do things like this.