At 10:59 AM 8/22/2010, Michael Sullivan wrote:
>on the C pillar of my 91?  When a/c is off, wire is cool.  When a/c is on,
>ire gets too hot to touch within 5 minutes.  Kinda concerned to cover the
>pillar until I feel better about this.  How hot is too hot? It is the wire
>on the right as it comes from the alt.

You've got no local overheating at the terminals, so they're in good
shape.  The insulation looks fine.  It's a 6 mm^2 wire, like a fat
AWG 10, with PVC insulation.  Under German regs it's allowed to have
a working temp of 70C which is 158F.  It's allowed to carry 39 amps
at 50C/122F.

Personally I think it would be better if it were a #8 wire, or had
another #10 in parallel.  I have some concern that it might be
exceeding maximum working temp down in the engine box.  At the least,
make sure that the alternator end of the wire looks like the end you
photographed.  Like car builders in general, VW tries to used the
absolute least possible amount of copper...

Yours,
David