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On 3 Nov 97, Keith Park wrote:
> Hmmmm...
>
> I've driven around with dead generators before with no problem, this
> would lead to less voltage at the CPU but it never seemed to be a
> major problem. Perhaps it was running a bit rich but I never noticed
> it.
I've seen it enough times that I can almost predict it if I see a
sudden drop my gas mileage that is not related to weather. You can
imagine how difficult it was to diagnose the first time, however. I
have never seen it described elsewhere.
I had my generator fail on me when I was three hours from home a
couple of years ago. I was already on the interstate on the way home
with the engine already warm when the light suddenly came on full
brightness. I did not happen to have any parts or tools with me at
the time so I just decided to keep driving and see how close to home
I could get before I had to pull over and call for help.
Three hours later I pulled into my own driveway and shut off the key.
As a test, I then tried to start the car; started easily, three times
in a row. Of course it was summer, daylight, clear skys, radio off.
Frankly I was astonished. I had never dreamed I could drive that far
without a charging system, and, like your experience, the car ran
fine the whole way.
I can't really explain it unless the low voltage is more of a problem
during warmup, which my car had already been through.
When I checked out the car later, I found a completely disintegrated
generator belt which took about 20 minutes to fish all the parts out
and 5 minutes to replace. This left no doubt, however, that my
charging system was delivering absolutely no power during that drive.
Jim
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Melissa Kepner Jim Adney
Laura Kepner-Adney
jadney@vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin
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