RED LITE!!!!

[fiat218]

ALTERNATOR !! red red
lites did not seem to go dim when the lite came on,and stayed on. i drove it home with it on prolly 16 miles
would u have thought the battery would go dead or lite dim? or no
could be just a fluke that the lite came on and all well,. i have not got a chance to have it checked out yet to see if the alternator is bad

[azruss]

if you have a good strong battery, it should run the car for a while. put a volt meter across the battery terminals when the motor is running to see if you are getting 13+ volts. that will tell you if the alternator is working

[fiat218]

i got the car checked out, seems to be all good charging, but that lite is on, so i guess i will have to see why

[fiat218]

why or what reason would the red light stay on if the charging system is good. or maybe it not good even if they say it ok

[bradartigue]

Typical reasons for this:

(A) You have a bad ground, or several.
(B) Your alternator connections are crap, clean them up.
(C) Your voltage regulator isn't giving good feedback.

[fiat218]

well when i did check there was a broken wire off the back, it was the red one so i thought that was simple to deal with and so the lite still is on, so where is that regulator located? firewall
i actually touch the wire to the back of the alternator and created a arck.
my first thought was i possible burnt it out by that spark, so maybe it affected the regulator ?
thanks

[Raze]

Woah Woah Woah!

First, I would not use live wires to do testing. You could damage your alternator or voltage regulator by doing exactly what you just did (arcing a wire across the alt).

Second, go buy a multimeter with a continuity setting, 90% of all electrical problems in these cars can be solved with nothing more than contact connection checks on the wiring.

Third, go to office depot or the like and print out Brad Artigue's Wiring Diagram for 69-73 spiders.
http://www.artigue.com/fiat

Fourth, you have a broken off wire, which is it? Do you have a picture? Is it one of the ones off the alternator or is it at the voltage regulator or the alternator charging light relay? The alt charging relay (which turns the light on or off) is right next to the voltage regulator on the driver's side firewall.

Fifth, You need to test the continuity of the connections of the wires between the alternator and the voltage regulator, as well as the voltage regulator to the light relay, and the light relay to the alternator, and finally the connections from the light relay to the light.

Sixth, If all the connections test ok, then you need to perform an alternator charging check to see if the voltage regulator is good. The instructions can be found in the Haynes manual or on this website someplace I'm sure.

Seventh, if you've done the above steps and everything is working ok, chances are it's the light relay, there's a test procedure for that in the haynes manual too.

Done.

[fiat218]

great advice, i dont know how to use a volt o meter lol
but i will learn
RED wire was broke off the alternator, and that comes from the battery. before that the lite was never on,

i actually changed the relay and the volt reg, but it not to say the others that i had was bad, i dont belive there where but u just never know

[124JOE]

volt meter continuity test
just pick one up place the red test end to the black
turn the dial untill it sends a tone (beeeeep)
then touch one end to a suspect wire and the other
to the other end of same wire
it should beep



hope this helps

[fiat218]

thanks . it ended up being the relay that was burned out

[124JOE]

COOL IM GLAD YOU FOUND IT

[fiat218]

well i had three relays and none made the lite go off so i thought something eles was wrong, so i had my mechanic check them, they was all burnt inside