Not charging!

[Digrizrat]

Had adventures with flat batteries, and decided to take the van to a mechanic instead of crawling around in the cold. F'ing useless idea that was.

They claimed it was the alternator, and rebuilt it with new bushes and bearings.

Got 5 miles up the road and the not charging warning light came on again! So I turned around and came straight back home. Getting stuck a few days back has taught me a little caution.

Just to be double sure I wasn't the problem, I disconnected all my camper wiring at the power take off bolts. Warning light still comes on

They'll have an unhappy customer waiting for them tomorrow morning. But in the meantime, anyone else have charging problems around 5 years old /140k miles? What are the likely faults?

[ake]

Alternators on our front wheel drives last about 90k miles
Never changed one on our rear wheel drives!

[the dutch guy]

Is the belt at the right tension?

Right now i get the alternator light when i engage the aircon. Off no problem.
So my belt is slipping. Might be your problem as well.

[Digrizrat]

Should probably update this, even though it's been a while. I needed to be 5 countries away and took off as soon as I had it fixed.

They'd rebuilt the alternator with new bearings, bushes, and other good stuff inside, then sprayed it with nice grey paint. It had paint splatter on the external plug contacts, where the computer connects. causing the computer not to be able to read or control it. Scraping the paint off the contacts and replacing the plug fixed it.

Interestingly, they claimed without connection to the computer, it reverts to a dumb alternator at fixed 13.8v. and it's safe to drive forever with that control cable disconnected.

Hope that helps anyone else reading the forum.