Alternator Light on Bonanza

Occasionally, notably when the battery is in a minorly discharged state (but
not always), I'll get an alternator offline indicator light and see the
ammeter go negative. This will either disappear immediately on its own or
require an alternator switch off/on reset by the book. It's been
intermittent for a year and the mechanics can't isolate it. Any ideas
appreciated.

Peter Shurman
Bonanza F33-A C/GRDT

"Peter Shurman" wrote:
Occasionally, notably when the battery is in a minorly discharged
state (but not always), I'll get an alternator offline indicator
light
and see the ammeter go negative. This will either disappear
immediately on its own or require an alternator switch off/on
reset by the book. It's been intermittent for a year and the
mechanics can't isolate it. Any ideas appreciated.

Sounds like a high resistance connection somewhere. First things to
check are the alternator and master switches, then make sure all the
ground connections are clean and tight.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)

Look to see the last time the alternator was o/h'd or at least the
coupler was serviced. Then check the SB's. It might be a 500 hour
item. And yes, check the switches.

On Sun, 04 Jan 2004 14:02:21 GMT, "Peter Shurman"
wrote:

Occasionally, notably when the battery is in a minorly discharged state (but
not always), I'll get an alternator offline indicator light and see the
ammeter go negative. This will either disappear immediately on its own or
require an alternator switch off/on reset by the book. It's been
intermittent for a year and the mechanics can't isolate it. Any ideas
appreciated.

Peter Shurman
Bonanza F33-A C/GRDT

My 77 F33A had similar symptoms for awhile, then went AWOL all-together.
Bad regulator. The old one was original and was quite a boat anchor - new
one much smaller/lighter.

ABS recommends you overhaul the alternator every 300-hours. There is a
failure scenario where the bearings fail and send metal into the engine. So
if you're beyond this, you might want to overhaul it to start with.

- Mark