Hi everyone, I'm a new member, but I've been looking round here for a while, trying to pick up some practical knowledge, and I have to say, I'm already grateful for the info you blokes have passed on so far.
I thought I'd bore you all with the story of a fault that occurred on my P38 in case it may help anyone else. A couple of weeks ago, on our way to the South of France, we stopped to fill up with LPG. Engine started ok, then after a couple of seconds <alternator fault> pops up on the display, the rev counter stopped working, the car switched back to petrol, the dash eas light came on, the eas lights started flashing, and the engine ran badly, sounding to me like some kind of get you home mode. I guess a lot of you will know that sinking feeling, particularly since I had an 8metre caravan on the back.
So, the decision was made to press on, and, after 40 or so miles everything just returned to normal function, all on it's own. Happy days I think, looks like we'll still get our holiday at least.
Getting close to our destination I stopped to fill up with lpg, and on starting up the same <alternator fault> occurred, all the same things as before, and stayed that way until we switched off when we arrived.
We used the car a couple of times and the fault was there, and often disappeared if we went over a bump. Loose connection springs to mind doesn't it, but there was nothing obvious, and the alternator output was still ok.
At the end of our holiday when I started the car, the fault was there. Went over a bump, fault disappeared. After that the next time we switched off for fuel the fault stayed put all the way home. Eventually the EAS got the arse and went into fault mode (without the speed warning), but we got home.
So following advice I cleaned the earth connections on battery / alternator / chassis, and after a lot of this sort of amateurish tinkering the <alternator fault> stops, only to re occurr the next morning.
While it was lingering on the drive the eas had gone all the way to the bump stops, so a trip to Guy Salmon was next. They reset the eas and said there were no other faults.... er? Anyway, went out to the car and.... well you guessed it, <alternator fault> with all the symptoms as every time before.
Service manager comes out to take a look under the bonnet and after a bit of poking around says there's a bit of a hissing sound coming from the solenoid valve type thing mounted up near the bulkhead. I hope I've managed to attach a pic of it with a yellow arrow showing what I'm talking about. Anyway, I poked around at it and suddenly the hissing stopped, the engine ran fine, no fault messages etc. As I moved the wiring to the connector the hissing came and went, and the car ran fine with no hissing (maybe someone could tell me what this bleed valve thing is doing). I can't see any visible damage to either the AMP plug or the wiring, and now there's no fault showing. The service manager at Guy Salmon hadn't seen this fault before.
I can only guess that a voltage was being dropped by a faulty connection somewhere in the wiring to this valve, and the car was in some way detecting that as an alternator fault. Anyway, I'm pleased it wasn't an alternator fault, as the 150amp Bosch unit is frighteningly expensive.
At the moment I can't get the fault to re occurr by moving the wiring, so it appears now to be cleared, although since I didn't actually find something broken which I could fix I suspect I'll see this fault again some time.
Anyway, if anyone gets <alternator fault> at least this could be one bit of loom worth poking around with.
Sorry this was a bit of a ramble :blabla:
I thought I'd bore you all with the story of a fault that occurred on my P38 in case it may help anyone else. A couple of weeks ago, on our way to the South of France, we stopped to fill up with LPG. Engine started ok, then after a couple of seconds <alternator fault> pops up on the display, the rev counter stopped working, the car switched back to petrol, the dash eas light came on, the eas lights started flashing, and the engine ran badly, sounding to me like some kind of get you home mode. I guess a lot of you will know that sinking feeling, particularly since I had an 8metre caravan on the back.
So, the decision was made to press on, and, after 40 or so miles everything just returned to normal function, all on it's own. Happy days I think, looks like we'll still get our holiday at least.
Getting close to our destination I stopped to fill up with lpg, and on starting up the same <alternator fault> occurred, all the same things as before, and stayed that way until we switched off when we arrived.
We used the car a couple of times and the fault was there, and often disappeared if we went over a bump. Loose connection springs to mind doesn't it, but there was nothing obvious, and the alternator output was still ok.
At the end of our holiday when I started the car, the fault was there. Went over a bump, fault disappeared. After that the next time we switched off for fuel the fault stayed put all the way home. Eventually the EAS got the arse and went into fault mode (without the speed warning), but we got home.
So following advice I cleaned the earth connections on battery / alternator / chassis, and after a lot of this sort of amateurish tinkering the <alternator fault> stops, only to re occurr the next morning.
While it was lingering on the drive the eas had gone all the way to the bump stops, so a trip to Guy Salmon was next. They reset the eas and said there were no other faults.... er? Anyway, went out to the car and.... well you guessed it, <alternator fault> with all the symptoms as every time before.
Service manager comes out to take a look under the bonnet and after a bit of poking around says there's a bit of a hissing sound coming from the solenoid valve type thing mounted up near the bulkhead. I hope I've managed to attach a pic of it with a yellow arrow showing what I'm talking about. Anyway, I poked around at it and suddenly the hissing stopped, the engine ran fine, no fault messages etc. As I moved the wiring to the connector the hissing came and went, and the car ran fine with no hissing (maybe someone could tell me what this bleed valve thing is doing). I can't see any visible damage to either the AMP plug or the wiring, and now there's no fault showing. The service manager at Guy Salmon hadn't seen this fault before.
I can only guess that a voltage was being dropped by a faulty connection somewhere in the wiring to this valve, and the car was in some way detecting that as an alternator fault. Anyway, I'm pleased it wasn't an alternator fault, as the 150amp Bosch unit is frighteningly expensive.
At the moment I can't get the fault to re occurr by moving the wiring, so it appears now to be cleared, although since I didn't actually find something broken which I could fix I suspect I'll see this fault again some time.
Anyway, if anyone gets <alternator fault> at least this could be one bit of loom worth poking around with.
Sorry this was a bit of a ramble :blabla:
