L322 Battery light & no charge problem.

My own 2003 L322 with about 30K miles on is giving now me the battery light warning and sure enough the alternator is not charging the battery.

I could just swap out the alternator, but thought to post up and ask if anyone else has had this or knows if it might be something else worth checking first?

I know its a silly point - wot with all the diagnostic stuff yu have over there, but have you tested the Alternator under load?

Nah, its a specialist water cooled item with no diagnostic capability. Later vehicles have some control aspects that can adjust the Alternators output, but it seems that this is just a total failure situation.
As there are no local re conditioners etc, it seems replacement at about 600 quid is my only option.

Only just got it back on the road having replaced the front legs as well

BBA reman. ABS, ecu's, throttle bodies, air mass meters, and catalytic converters

surprisingly helpful and have office abroad as well, not saying they will-but £600 **** that I'd sooner buy one off a smashed one.

Free Rebuilds
We recognise that most of our new products have arisen because you the customer have
made us aware of a need. In order to increase this flow of information we will rebuild your
unit free of charge if it is a new type of product we have not seen before. This would mean
a new area eg adjustable ride shock absorbers, rather than a Bosch 5.6 ABS controller
when we already build 5.5. Typically the product should cost more than 350 uk pounds from
a main dealer. If we go on to rebuild more than 10 in a six month period we will reward you
with a cheque for 1000 uk pounds!

I know I'm a bit of a dinosaur but with £600 at stake have you checked the diodes? O.K. I don't know if you can even get to the electronics on a 'water cooled alternator' but in years gone by I've saved a few bob with the old soldering iron and some generic power diodes. But then I saved a few bob keeping the fuel pump on my old Morris Minor going with elastic bands.

A good mate of mine got one flown in and is fitting it today for the time being

He is only a small garage, but tells me this is the third he has done recently, so he is going to give me the old ones, so i might have a play with one and send one to BBA. They are a bit more involved than usual to change, Viscous fan off etc, etc and you have to change the 10 quid seal every time, so my mate says as long as he gets a clean enough looking working one back he would be happy so i don't have a lot to loose really.