Gwiz
Member Since: 17 Feb 2012
Location: Chelmsford
Posts: 212
  
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Hi All,
Just thought i would share a recent issue with you, my D3 has been working fine for several months now in spite of the very wet conditions, i use a "ford " nearly every day going to and from work, so just recently it got a bit deep 2ft + but have gone through a few times and its ok, well i thought it was can’t say for sure, but last week had a few things suddenly go wrong with the D3, heated seats, heated screen, suspension pump then had a flat battery, checked the charge rate found it wouldn’t get much over 12.6 volts, did a bit of reading and found it should be up at 15.6 volts just after starting so was low, removed alternator not easy if you can’t get the Viscos Fan off, and found a Diode had blown, the thing is there were no indications of this apart from things stopping working, no Red ignition light or engine management light, so be aware if suddenly things stop working you may have the same issue.   Graham
Always interested in learning,,
everyday is a school day, even at my age
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 3rd Dec 2012 2:06 pm |
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ianrichardson
Member Since: 31 Aug 2010
Location: Cardiff and Mid France!
Posts: 313
 
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Interesting Gwiz.
My alternator went in France last year, and I opted to replace it with a Denso OEM as well as renew the diode pack on the original.
Why? Well the car has done 155,000 miles and I reckoned that the bearings in the original would be 'a little tired'!
So the new on went in, and I have a hot spare!
What was interesting is that the battery hadn't been achieving full charge, in my estimation, for a bit. The end came when a significant number of diodes cried 'enough' and the rest popped!
I think that only two diodes were left intact on the plate, the majority had blown the junction between the lead and diode pressed in the plate.
I actually made a tool for holding the pulley, not difficult as I have a small workshop out in France. With that it's very easy to remove the viscous fan. Once that's off it is plane (plain?) sailing to remove the alternator. Thanks to Ford the tensioner is easily retracted, a 3/8" socket bar and bob's your uncle.
My constant difficulty is removing the top fan cover as the off side clips I find are a pane to undo!
So in short I'm not surprised at your experience.
Ian
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| 6th Dec 2012 9:46 am |
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nick2506
Member Since: 22 Nov 2005
Location: Chesterfield
Posts: 27
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Ian,
I would like to add a diode pack to my list of available spares.
Can you supply details of the diode pack part number and your supplier ?
Many others would be interested in a brush pack at the same time.
Many thanks.
Nick
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| 6th Dec 2012 10:30 am |
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