Battery light, under load. / revs

[PushedDover]

Evening all,

I took the NA out at dusk tonight, and noticed two oddities - as i rarley drive in low light / evening.

First - flickering headlight, and pulling over revealed a retaining screw on the ring missing, and goddamn it if you couldnt rebuild an entire car from the guys at MX5Parts.co.uk - so a few in the post to solve that mystery.

the other mystery, is approaching 4k rpm, the battery light is starting to flicker and light up. Car pulls, drives as normal, and using the metric yardstick of 'wiper speed' I could nt detect low voltage running around the car.

The car sits plugged in to a CTEK, and I noticed after c 15miles of driving.

As far as I can think, more rev's, more going through the Alternator and Volts, any thoughts on why 'low volts, would be flashing?

[pewe]

Two possibilities:-
1) Alternator belt slipping - either lack of tension or the pullies are corroded (rusty). Both a relatively simple fix - tighten the belt ( a relatively simple job - just ensure the bottom mounting bolt is slackened off) and/or sandpaper the grooves in the pullies.
2) Alternator on its way out - resistors starting to break down as it heats up. It's unsuprising given the unit is probably farily old?
I took mine to Burghfield Starter and Alternator Centre where he fully refurbed it next day - new bearings and electronics plus guarantee for the price of a cheap Chinese one. I think he also does mail order though I imagine shipping could be costly given it weighs a few kilos.

[PushedDover]

Thanks

Google also suggests a worn out unit - it is 28yrs old to be fair, 115k miles on it !
I ll see if I can get it load monitored up at the local garage

Edited by PushedDover on Monday 1st December 10:41