Some bugs ive found with my car (electrical)

Since day one my blinkers havent worked. (I have to use my hazards when turning to warn ppl to slow down and that I am turning)
Well they worked when my old battery was in the car but since I replaced it it hasnt. All Fuses look fine.
My switch works (highbeams work& on dash)
Ground maybe? Where should I look?

Also I have recently have had a red light issue. 2 months ago the Gen light blinked on and off then dissapeared.

But now it has come on and has been on for a week now. At night if the lights are on, radio, and gas pressed it gets brighter. I havnt driven it at night or used the radio. I just drive her and hope to not have to use the wipers. lol
I have replaced the belt(Firm and dosnt slip), Voltage Regulator(polarized- big spark!), and checked to see if the bearing on the Gen and Fan is loose. It doesnt seem so..
I orderd Gen brush parts and I am picking that up today..

I have only had my battery since Dec. Its new and a top brand so I dont think thats the issue.

Any input would be awesome as this is my DD and a car I want to last.
Thanks!

What's the generator light doing? By disappeared, do you mean it hasn't come on at all since the time it blinked two months ago? Does it still come on when you turn the key to the on position?

Hey fluxcap maybe after you get her problem fix you can check out one of them prom dresses lol!!!!they could come in handy for working on the bug

fluxcap wrote:What's the generator light doing? By disappeared, do you mean it hasn't come on at all since the time it blinked two months ago? Does it still come on when you turn the key to the on position?

I need to clarify; (edited)
Sorry,

The Gen light has been on for a week straight now. It does come on when the key is in the start position(w/o the car being on) The yellow comes on too when in start position but sometimes flikers when I need more oil. I have a oil cooler gasket needing replaced.(oil light).

56HAVOC wrote:Hey fluxcap maybe after you get her problem fix you can check out one of them prom dresses lol!!!!they could come in handy for working on the bug

Nah, in the BAP thread, Tim mentioned that Drew has his prom coming up, so I'll let him get first dibs.

Have you measured the voltage at the regulator? If you have been driving this fairly regularly for a week with the light on, and haven't had a dead battery, I would guess it is actually charging. With the key on, that warning light gets power directly from the fuse block and gets it's ground from the voltage regulator. Turn the key on, then go to the voltage regulator (are these still in the engine bay on a 68, or under the back seat?). If your wiring is stock, you should have a small blue wire on the voltage regulator. Remove this wire and see if the warning light turns off. It should, if it doesn't, that wire may have a short somewhere and constantly grounding out making the light act weird.

If it cuts out as it should, I would check the voltage output at the generator.

It has died but was then fully charged while I was at work.
V. regulator is under the back seat. I will check that tomorrow after work when I put the brush parts in the Gen. Do you think that the brush parts would make a difference? My current ones are black. lol

68buggirrl wrote:It has died but was then fully charged while I was at work.
V. regulator is under the back seat. I will check that tomorrow after work when I put the brush parts in the Gen. Do you think that the brush parts would make a difference? My current ones are black. lol

Well, if it has died, I would definitely get a volt-meter on it and see what it is putting out. Brushes could make a difference, but to be honest I've never ran the same generator long enough to ever had to replace the brushes. I plan on keeping my current car long enough though so I should get that chance someday!

lol, Okay. Hopefully it will.

I had some crazy electrical issues with one of my 68's then ended up with a dead battery. I did have an oil light on and thought that i had a bad sending unit. changed it out and still had the oil light on but i knew that the oiling system was good cuz i checked with mechanical gauge. Turns out the PO had put the wire for the generator on the bulb for oil light. Got the wires back to the proper locations to show that the generator wasn't charging so I checked the generator and it wasn't charging, changed the brushes out and everything went back to working properly afterwards. So in short...Yeah check/change the brushes.

awesome!!

maybe your brushes are sticking? next time your at you car turn it on, and give it a nice big rev in neutral (NOT pedal to the floor, but a good hard rev), and see if the light goes out. if it does, then its just sticking brushes. if not, then your problem is elsewere.

just slap a one wire alt on there, and call it a day



and yes grounds are usually the culprit 95% of the times when it comes to electrical problems, lol. oh and with the turn signal thing, i had the same problem with my car a while back. it worked with the hazards, but the turn signal didn't work. i changed the flasher and problem solved.

Basically if that light is on then it is not charging... unless you're driving my 71 super beetle which only charges with it on... but that's a different discussion entirely...

If you take your car to autozone or advance they should be able to test both your charging system and your battery. Your regulator under the back seat is only half of the equation... you still have to have output from the generator... If you are having a problem maintaining your lights, radio, wipers etc... it is probably because your stereo is putting too much strain on the old system... I have never had a generator longer than a couple of months. I always convert to an alternator with a built in regulator... that way you always have current. There is a wire that connects to the generator that is for the light on the dash. If that light is not connected then the car will not charge and it will glow red on your dash. So check to make sure all the wires are connected as it could be something as simple as that.

vwgirl wrote:If that light is not connected then the car will not charge and it will glow red on your dash. So check to make sure all the wires are connected as it could be something as simple as that.

I have asked this a few other times in various discussions and never gotten a reply, but isn't this only true for alternators? Everything I have read states that a generator will charge with or without a functioning warning light, but the alternator requires the slight draw to charge.

from: http://www.vw-resource.com/alternator_generator.html

There is one additional wire (a thin one) from the alternator to the "Gen/Alt" indicator light in the instrument cluster. It is essential that this wire be in place -- otherwise the alternator cannot charge. On alternator cars, even if the indicator light burns out, the alternator can't charge -- it uses a tiny signal current through this bulb to activate the alternator -- even when the light isn't actually glowing it has a tiny current through it. It's not the same situation with the older generator models -- if the indicator light blows it can still charge.

Hmmm... interesting question... as I said... my generators don't stick around too long (although my fastback has one and I don't know if I can convert it?) so honestly, I don't know about a generator. It is the same wiring as an alternator so I would have thought that it would follow the same rules. Perhaps not though... maybe someone else knows.

The generators do not need the light to charge. The light is just a warning that there is no juice comming from the gen. Alternators do need exciter power to start the charging.

From the sound of what waht done, worried me a bit that she mentioned polorizing the regulator. Big spark at the reg will fry it.

You can bypass the eciter wire on an alt with a 12v supply run in via the blue wire. generators can usually last a very long time with brush changes, biggest fault on a gen is when someone hooks up the wires and spins the connections and breaks the internal wire. Alts are basically a solid state unit and backflow or heavy draw can burn out the diodes on them and make them go bad. Either can be repaired just a pita and usually cheaper to get a new one.

meinvw wrote:The generators do not need the light to charge. The light is just a warning that there is no juice comming from the gen. Alternators do need exciter power to start the charging.

From the sound of what waht done, worried me a bit that she mentioned polorizing the regulator. Big spark at the reg will fry it.

true... but I took that to mean she did this after she started having issues...

perhaps the light stays on to charge my alt cause I didnt do the conversion right that time?

i fixed it by replacing the gen brush parts. thankgod. the old ones were worn almost to the wire. now i need to replace the oil cooler gasket. thanks for the help guys!

now wht should i look for w the blinker issue as stated originally?

The turn signals on my 68 don't work either, I was hoping to look at your car to see if I wired something up wrong.

they used too, up intill i replaced the battery now they wont!

Signals are likely a fuse or the relay. Check the fuses first. Sometimes they don't look broken even when they are. I'd guess the relay or the fuse fried when you replaced the batt.

tht makes sense. Ill check tomorrow.