Alternator

[Big bore]

On start up the red light on the dash stays on and the volts stick at 11 volts but once you give it a blip it goes out and the volts go 13 volts.
Other than that every thing else is normal.

Is the Alternator on its way out.

[clive f]

should be okay, you can check the alternator if you have a voltmeter, first check that you have 12 volts across the battery, then start the car and with the engine running you should get a reading of 13 to 14 volts across the battery terminals, if so then the alternator is charging the battery.

hope this helps.

[spend]

Sounds like the self exciting is working OK, the main way of exciting is through the warning lamp (and normally a resistor in parallel).. Maybe the resistance from the ign to the spade terminal is too high, try hot wiring the spade connector & see if the alt then kicks into life at low revs. Otherwise I guess it could be indicative of field coil problems starting?

[cinquecento]

I had a similiar problem last week..and the 100 amp fuse had dissolved in the small plastic case. Take the fuse out and inspect..see if it's brittle. You can't tell by just looking as the cables hide the fuse ends.

[Toma500]

Big bore said:

On start up the red light on the dash stays on and the volts stick at 11 volts but once you give it a blip it goes out and the volts go 13 volts.
Other than that every thing else is normal.

Is the Alternator on its way out.

Mines been like that near 5 years so it should be okay .

[Simon.b]

cinquecento said:

I had a similiar problem last week..and the 100 amp fuse had dissolved in the small plastic case. Take the fuse out and inspect..see if it's brittle. You can't tell by just looking as the cables hide the fuse ends.

Yep mine was the same, it had a hairline crack which wasn’t noticeable under the car, but once removed the fuse fell apart, cost a replacement alternator to find it.

Cheers,

Simon.