>When my Diesel Vanagon caught fire I just replaced a bunch of fuel hoses,
>connected a lead to the shut-off solenoid and ran some jumper cables from
>the starter to the battery.   So no, it does not *need* an alternator to
>run.  I will say that it was not running in top form under that condition.

An old-fasioned diesel has no engine electrics apart from MAYBE a
fuel-shutoff valve, and so can run indefinitely without alternator or
battery. But you'd have to pushstart.

My 57 panel Split, running a 12V single-port 1600 back in 1983, had a
regulator failure at the beginning of a 900km (each way) trip; a wire
in the winding broke. I had to use wipers for some time, and it got
dark. It did about 320km before the engine began sputtering and I had
to turn the wipers off; a further 40 or so before the QH headlights
became too much for the draining battery, and we had drive on parking
lights to find a town and doss down on the grass in a park (van was
FULL of heavy junk). I thought it did really well.

By the way, I assume your diesel van's fire was electrical!
--
Andrew Grebneff
165 EvansSt, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand
<andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz>
Ph: 0064 (3) 473-8863 fax: 0064 (3) 479-7527
1986 Toyota Corolla 1.8DX CE80 diesel sedan
1989 Toyota Corolla 1.8DX CE96 diesel van
1989 Toyota Corona 2.0D Select CT170 diesel sedan
1992 Toyota Estima Lucida 2.2 turbodiesel MPV (=narrow "Previa")
1984 VW Caravelle GL (to be fitted with 260hp Subaru SVX flat-6 &
Porsche G50 trans)
Seashell, Macintosh, VW & Toyota van nut