Alternator Leads

[alixfrit]

heya,

i seem to have a lead hanging off the bottom of my car which looks like it should belong in the alternator because i have no interior lights on the speedo and the front washer isn't working .

 

any help would be much appreciated.

Alex

[UserError]

heya,

i seem to have a lead hanging off the bottom of my car which looks like it should belong in the alternator because i have no interior lights on the speedo and the front washer isn't working .

 

any help would be much appreciated.

Alex

 

Alex,

If your car starts OK (starter motor turns over briskly, not struggling) and the other electricals - eg headlights are OK and the car isn't electrically dying in recent days, then the lead is probably not related to the alternator. If teh alternator is not connected, the battery doesn't get charged & the whole car elctrics get dimmer over a period of a few days.

 

The alternator lead is fed through a bracket highish up on the left hand end of the engine and goes into the wiring loom branch . I can't see this falling & hanging down under the car, but with cars you can't rule anything out....

 

 

The non-functioning interior lights and washer (squirt or wiper blade?) is more likely to be due fuse(s). Fusebox is below the steering wheel - turn the catches with a coin & it drops down.

 

Or bad connections. Follow the wiring & separate the connnectors and clean with a piece of sandpaper if they look at all corroded (fiddly to do, but not hard). If they all stopped working at the same time, look for fuses first.

 

No lights on the dashboard is common. They die one by one till the instruments are in darkness. Apparently a pig of a job to do as you gotta take teh dash & steering assembly out to get to them. (much discussion and guidance written about this on this forum :

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2260

http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

The search is crap mso you have to wade thru a load of stuff to find things.

 

The lead hanging down under the car - front end? Could be a range of things - there are a load of spare/unused cables depending on what spec your model is (foglights etc). Try to find out what colour the wires are & look in the HAynes manual.

 

If the lead is hanging down on the front of the engine, near the alternator, with a smallish green connector, I've just replaced teh engine and found that I've got one of these & I think it's spare as I can't find anywhere for it to go, although this is what I was looking for on the web.

Cheers

Jonathan