Mike, good for you for sticking with it and nailing it down.

This wiring area is a real weak spot in 83-85 and early 86 vans. I can't
tell you how many times I have seen problems on those red wires at the
junction post hidden in the wiring box.

Even 86+ has an issue with the charging wire from the alternator, but
usually not as hidden since it bypasses that junction. VW increased the
wire size in 88 and I haven't heard of as many issues after that.

This even comes up with engine conversions as many times the conversion
uses the original Vanagon charging wiring and just hooks it to the new
alternator or splices it to the conversion charging wire stub. Then
strange things happen with the new engine like they were when the owner
got disgusted with the old one and decided to convert.

Mark

Michael A. Radtke wrote:
> Mark and David,
>
> Thank you for nagging me.
>
> I did the tests that I should have done in the first place and found
> that one of the crimps had failed on the parallel wires at the clean and
> shiny end in the junction box. I rebuilt and soldered all of the
> crimps. This brought the voltage drop from the alternator to the
> battery under load to 0.5 volts. That still bothered me so I installed
> the recommended jumper from the alternator to the starter. The jumper
> reduced the total drop to about 250 millivolts.
>
> Thank you for not letting me walk away from the real problem.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>