Aaaargh no charge?

[matchless]

On my daily driver 245 d24+tic I have no charging to the battery the alternator is checked and OK the battery is new and I can't See any damage to the wiring? What can be wrong? Help please

[v8volvo]

What does the battery light on the dashboard do? Any other strange behavior?

If the bulb is blown or there is a problem with the instrument cluster circuitboard or elsewhere in the D+ (exciter) circuit upstream or downstream of the cluster, you'll have a no-charge issue that sounds like what could be happening. If you never see the light come on at all, even with key-on/engine-off, then you'll want to disconnect the wire from the D+ terminal on the back of the alt and ground it, and see if the light comes on. If it does, then the problem is in the alternator. If it doesn't, then you have either a bulb or a wiring problem. Engine wiring harness is suspect on early '80s cars so you could start by checking for continuity in that circuit from the big rectangular 8-pin harness connector on the firewall to the wire at the alternator. If there's continuity there, then you will want to check the bulb in the cluster and troubleshoot the rest of the circuit to see where there's an open. Power needs to flow through the warning light bulb's filament and onward to D+ on the alt, so anything interrupting that will cause the alt to not charge. (Including driving the car repeatedly with the cluster out!)

[matchless]

I try again

The alternator is checked at a shop. The wire harness seems to have no damage I have measured the whole ........?,..! Thing 2times. Tried a new alternator no change. Even tried a new battery.

The thing is when I turn on the key the light comes on and when I start the engine the light shuts off. but some times all the lights in the dashboard flashes

[RedArrow]

Starting Winter I wanted the orange glow-light stand out of the crowd for some obvious reasons lol I liked the result a lot. Then I ended up switching all those old-school dash `idiot`lights with `fancy` stronger led bulbs. They look great, fit fine, function properly... except that now the glow plug lug light and battery light do `flash` sometimes. I`m sure it has something to do with the bulb being LED because I have no other known issues and all this xmas-light-thing came up right after I installed the tiny leds. Never when driving,it only happens shortly after cold starts,just a few times, then disappears.Switching over the bulbs can`t make it go away (nor relocate the issue to another light)
Speaking of all of them flashing in your car:
I too once had all dash lights (the ones at bottom of cluster,740)`flash` (go out, come back,go out again etc) intermittently for quite some time; it was related to my stupidity Lol, ignition switch got flooded with too much love&ArmorAll dash cleaner. LOL. I even got stuck thanks to that crap. Later I took it apart, cleaned it and resoldered a few connections and it works Ok. Cluster was a bit shaky/loose too,got fixed. (740)
Good luck fixing!

[matchless]

It was the alternator belt only 1,5 months old. But no grip at all, it was tight so I could play on it, but when the alternator was gaining resistance to charge it could not pull it along. And now belt noise when doing it

[matchless]

And thanks for all the suggestions on problem solving

[RedArrow]

Originally Posted by v8volvo

What does the battery light on the dashboard do? Any other strange behavior?

If the bulb is blown or there is a problem with the instrument cluster circuitboard or elsewhere in the D+ (exciter) circuit upstream or downstream of the cluster, you'll have a no-charge issue that sounds like what could be happening. If you never see the light come on at all, even with key-on/engine-off, then you'll want to disconnect the wire from the D+ terminal on the back of the alt and ground it, and see if the light comes on. If it does, then the problem is in the alternator. If it doesn't, then you have either a bulb or a wiring problem. Engine wiring harness is suspect on early '80s cars so you could start by checking for continuity in that circuit from the big rectangular 8-pin harness connector on the firewall to the wire at the alternator. If there's continuity there, then you will want to check the bulb in the cluster and troubleshoot the rest of the circuit to see where there's an open. Power needs to flow through the warning light bulb's filament and onward to D+ on the alt, so anything interrupting that will cause the alt to not charge. (Including driving the car repeatedly with the cluster out!)

Damn it!!!!!!! wow. damn. wow. f..ck. wow OMG!!!

v8volvo.... man....wow

I did all kinds of things on the 740 in the recent days ...
(wiring cleanups, heat shrink tubed several sections, relays removed+relay board cleaned-up, wiper relay checked,wiper motor taken apart, car got a new blower motor, battery terminal clean-ups-check-ups, glow-plug voltage measurements, ignition switch removal and reinstallation,front aux fan removal&install,airhorn relocating and reconnecting, etc etc, sealing the huge firewall cracks+leaks, plugging windshield trim leak-holes,replacing the right front door panel, rerouting door-light,etc... misc small things, like wiring fender euro signals, adding led bulbs into cluster etc.) ...
and that is always a not-to-do (multiple fixes at the same time) because if you DO have issues later, you probably wont be able to know WHICH one of those `fixes` to blame.
And this is exactly what happened.

I did all these little fixes, before-winter check-ups (lot of rain recently here in ny) and right after I finished, the next morning or two, i noticed a problem immediately.
The car wouldn`t crank too strongly or it would not crank at all.Hell, I said, come ooon, why happening out of the blue? (--->because of me, of course)

Acted like there was no power at all. OR a bad ignition switch. When it did crank, it did slowly, getting weaker, then nothing... many times i would not hear the glowplug relay working prior to starting (wow. too much has been going on...ign switch to be blamed, all this came at the worst time. bad timing for all these issues coming together)

So I jumped the battery and car started fine. Except when not. Stupid ign switch was playing, making fun of me. I had to hot-wire the car as I did before when it did this to me.
So I couldnt make sure what the problem was here... Having the car hot-wired, i knew there was good glowplug action, a working relay, and no chance for the ign switch to play with me again.

But i had to know what was causing this no-power problem.
Battery was first to blame because all other things are usually working properly on this car, plus my battery is very old anyway (`07). Almost bought a new battery.
WRONG diagnosis!
I grabbed the multimeter and realized that battery may be just fine! but, I have no charge coming from the alternator. I measured same voltage there.
...
OK, tipical check-ups followed. Wiring is nice, no damages. Engine grounds and All connections have been cleaned, battery terminal cleaned, some clamps replaced etc.
Still, no charge. Battery got connected to the other car and was nicely showing 13.4 when that was running. Looks like it isnt the battery playing me... I have a few months fresh alt belt installed and decided to blame it on that. I said, maybe belt is loose because it seated by now and maybe it got loose and cant charge...I tried it all with a tightened belt. Still, no charge. I thought, Maybe belt was too tight that killed my alt. etc...
Next day I decided to remove the alternator and comletely took it apart just to see that nothing obvious is going crazy in there. No signs of worn out parts or bad wiring or burnt parts.
I even took off the 240 alternator to install it on the d24t but this was another stupid thing to do. They arent the same at all. Mounting locations are different and wiring connectors arent the same either. But i wanted to run it there to see if d24t system is fine, then buy a new alternator for it.
I took apart both alternators to switch the internals to make my d24t alt housing work with the 240 alt parts. Dead idea... The housings and the inner parts are all different. Just a little but that is more than enough to make it hard. I even tried using both brackets (connected to each other) to have the d24 alt positioned right. LOL! FUNNY me
740 adjusting Bracket is shorter, different angle. 240 bracket is longer, but not long enough and theres no clearance in the d24t for the d24 alt. Air box parts are in the way. Even if it did fit, the belt wouldn`t run staright because the d24t has the small belt pulley stick out more than the d24 pulley does.

The d24 alt ended up with a bolt broken into the alu housing. Took us a long time and lots of care to remove it safely.
All this had to be learned and played through...
Such a stupid waste of time i had today, for many hours.

WHY?
Because, now, as I`m reading randomly about alternator problems here on the forum, I found this write-up by v8volvo just to
LEARN FOREVER
that this damn battery will NOT get a damn charge unless that damn instrument damn cluster is IN !!!!! Damn!!!
MAN!!!! Im so angry. At myself.

My cluster IS out!
It is waiting for the 4th stupid led bulb. I only had 3 so I decided not to plug and play more than once. Cluster is sensitive and needs lots of care to plug in all those wires correctly. OHHH.

Lets be positive now. Both alternators have been fully taken apart and nicely cleaned. I won`t ever try switching them again. And, ign switch has been ordered.

Thank you very much for clearing this out. I will go ahead and remove the d24 alt from car, put together the d24t alt, reconnect it all, plug in the cluster and see what happens.
OMG what a day. lol. i am very very stupid not to know that cluster must be in to have it charged. Unbelievable that THE VOLTAGE/BATTERY BULB must be present in there also, in order for the power to reach the alt.
Such a small thing , making a big mess. shame on me lol
Hey, thanks again. Pictures later.

[RedArrow]

An update, that wagon runs as it should, alt is fixed, new belt too, bought a new battery and rebuilt the broken instrument cluster panel using a 1987 780 cluster`s internal parts, tested all circuits, did repairs and replaced several bulbs etc. Got my ign switch replaced also.

Looks like all is in order now but the engine harness itself is so crappy/rotten/broken/disintegrated/shorted!/ugly/greasy/messed up that i had to remove it as a unit...so now I am building a fully new one from scratch.
Wish me luck and read the thread once it`s up. Hopefully this year.

[R.Mojica]

Wow. Good luck

[monkeh]

Don't use LED lamps, if you do, avoid using an LED in the charging indicator. I learnt the hard way, It worked... But the low current use meant that it didn't charge the system effectively, resulting in a very slow death of battery, It charged... only on a long journey.