Son of a . . .

[AaronM]

Went to take the 924S out of storage today, had been on the charger all of last night. Alternator light, for the first time ever, comes on and stays on. My uncle, who is storing the car for me, says that they jumped it a couple of times to move it around but didn't notice the alternator light coming on.

My thoughts are that one of two things have happened; the battery is somehow severely drained but managed to start the car (rather doubtful) or one of those jump-starts blew the alternator. I can't see any other reason for a car that's just sitting there to have an alternator just suddenly fail like that.

Anyone else have something similar happen and have an idea what it might be?

Aaron

[Jerry 83 944]

A battery with a superficial charge will start a car but not hold a solid charge. My money is on a bad cell in the battery causing the alt light to come on. Put in a known-good battery and check it again. I'll also bet the existing battery will fail a load test miserably.
Give me an update after you try this.
.02

[singpilot]

Did you get the revs high enough to get the alternator on line?

[AaronM]

Originally posted by singpilot
Did you get the revs high enough to get the alternator on line?

An automotive alternator should be putting 13 volts (nominal) across the battery terminals _all the time_. These are not motorcycle dynamos we're talking about here. An automotive alternator, at idle, should be very slowly trickle-charging the battery. If the engine is running, the alternator is "on line". If that's not the case, something is wrong.

The dead cell in the battery seems a likely culpret. My Mark VIII's battery is more than a little too large to fit in the 924S though and the 914's was back home. I won't have time to get to it again for a couple days but I'll check that out when I'm able to go pick it up again.

Aaron