Yeah...David, alt ned is nice and clean and unburnt.  I think I have a new
project to work on over the cooler season(upgrading the wires).  I don't use
the a/c much, but nice to have when you are sunburnt and slaty or got lucky
enough to have a lady friend along.
Since I don't know alot about electricity, I hate to take a Tim "The
Toolman" Taylor approach and beef up the wiring past the tolerance of the
rest of the system.
Thanks guys.
Michael in San Antonio
91GL Weekender AT 2.1L 'Gringo'

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 1:37 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net> wrote:

> 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
>