battery light and o2 light

[theonlyred16v@hotmail.com (Brian Haygood)]

Yep, I looked into that.  The problem was that the connections being used 
(regular wire nuts) weren't ensuring good enough contact between copper 
wires and aluminum wires (didn't deform the wires to fit each other well 
enough).  The electricity ended up flowing entirely through the thin thread 
wires of the wire nuts, causing the platic part of the nut to burn and 
eventually burn down the house.  Oxidation degraded the connections over 
time until it got hot enough to become a problem.  New laws mandated 
changing the type of connections made at wire junctions between aluminum and 
copper, or swapping out all wiring, which obviously wasn't done too often.

These large aluminum calbes I'm using are used to transmit power to and from 
RV's, via lugs similar to welding cable lugs.  I have used the same types of 
connections in my car (I messed up one of them a bit, so that will have to 
be redone eventually).  In order to fight corrosion, I'll coat the ends with 
that red spray coating stuff FLAPS sells for battery terminals.  That stuff 
is great on any battery terminal, BTW.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

BH

>From: Brian McGarvey <brianm@earendel.org>
>To: Brian Haygood <theonlyred16v@hotmail.com>
>CC: <irisheet@yahoo.com>, <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
>Subject: Re: battery light and o2 light
>Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 09:17:51 -0400 (EDT)
>
>be aware of Aluminum cable problems. as time goes by it starts to oxidize.
>and becomes a resister in series with your systsem. that will eventually
>make it get really hot and catch fire, not today not next week prolly not
>even in the next n years. They used to use it in homes, but they are not
>allowed to anymore.
>brian
>
>
>On Sun, 26 May 2002, Brian Haygood wrote:
>
> > Hey, I just went through this on my car!  I finally get to contribute 
>useful
> > info to the 'rocco list!
> >
> > Al gave me a technical rundown on the problem.  I will sum up:  
>Alternators
> > have to have a voltage running through them before they can create more
> > voltage.  This is accomplished by having a permanent magnet-based 
>generator
> > element inside them that gets things going.  When this "primer" current 
>gets
> > flowing, so-to-speak, then the alternator kicks in does its job.  If the
> > magnet stuff goes bad, your alt never gets going.
> >
> > If the wiring is going bad this can make it harder to get the alt going 
>(can
> > you tell I don't really understand this because I use stupid terms like 
>that
> > over and over again??), and your lights stay on longer and longer.
> >
> > The alt and OXS lamps are both wired up such that the OXS light comes on
> > whenever the alt light is on.  This is triggered by the blue wire on the
> > back of the alt, which runs near the starter, has a connector at the (+)
> > battery terminal, and heads to the dash.  This wire's (alt) voltage is
> > compared to the battery voltage to see if the car is charging well 
>enough.
> > Bad grounding often causes all of this.
> >
> > Fix:  Clean all ends of all wires you can get to.  Clean mating surfaces 
>of
> > wires (including the little blue one, and the small wires atthe batt.
> > terminals) with emory paper and/or soldering flux.  Clean the ground 
>wire's
> > connections to battery, body (behind battery (and maybe under airbox??)) 
>and
> > transmission mount (under airbox).  Also clean ends of wires at starter,
> > alt, and the coil's connection to the intake manifold.  This cleaning is 
>all
> > it took for mine to run well.  Replacing these cables may provide 
>further
> > improvement, but my cables were in decent shape.
> >
> > PS:  Just moved my battery to the rear yesterday, and the car starts 
>even
> > better now.  Used some trick aluminum wire that weighs only 3 lb's to 
>get
> > all the way to the front with a seriously massive cable.  I have a lot 
>of
> > this stuff left over if anyone wants to make new cables, or relocate 
>their
> > battery.  I'm bringing it to Cincy.
> >
> > Brian
> > >From: breandan mcilwain <irisheet@yahoo.com>
> > >To: scirocco list <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
> > >Subject: battery light and o2 light
> > >Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 19:15:02 -0700 (PDT)
> > >
> > >these 2 lights are staying on for a few moments when i
> > >fire up the car, it has never done this in the past
> > >and i dont understand why it is doing it now.  does
> > >this indicate i am having a charging problem?  i have
> > >a new alternator and all new belts
> > >
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