I don't know if these folks, WAI-Wetherill, will sell retail or not. If not, maybe they can point you to someone locally that will. http://www.wai-wetherill.com/contacts/locationmap.cfm

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

I came accross this statement in 'alt.engineering.electrical' forum and figured I should post it

"many inexpensive meters will, when set to an AC voltage range,
indicate a voltage when placed across a pure DC source. This is because
they lack a coupling capacitor in series with their innards when set to
AC."

I know I've read post's here of people reporting similar VAC results that I did when measuring alternator output's. Apparently you need a decent DMM to perform this test...

I replaced the negative battery cable and put a new end on the positive cable and all is well again.

I cleaned up the connections at the alternator too, but I could not figure out how to get the wire connectorions out of the plastic plug in order to replace them. Very frustrating...

Rather than replace them, you might try just applying dielectric grease to the connector to abate corrosion. I did this on mine and seems to have eliminated some of the variation in the brightness of the headlights that was occurring before.

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

I guess I'd better update this:

Replacing the battery cables only helped, the light ended up coming on again only not as bright and a little less often. It turned out to be the voltage regulator (big surprise ) I just didn't expect the regulator to go bad after only 1 year (less than 10,000 miles). I thought the cold weather had killed my alternator again. Upon pulling it out, I saw that both brushes were only making partial contact. Neither brush was worn evenly, they both had about an 1/8 inch tall sliver of material sticking up. The brushes on these seem to flop around way too easilly, allowing them to lose contact. Luckily I had a spare one from when I tried repairing my alternator last year.

That sounds about right. There's AC voltage measurements that are peak-to-peak, and then there's the typical RMS measurement. RMS always yields a lower value because it is an average of the power. Take an RMS meter and hook it to a DC source and you'll get a higher reading. RMS usually isn't 2X, but is it a significant percentage higher.

What you _really_ want to do is to get a small non-polar capacitor and put it inline with the meter. That will prevent any DC from passing through but allow AC to pass so you can get a measure of the AC component only. As I recall, good meters have this built in.

However, really, really sensitive meters can pick up stray electrical fields that are creating minute, alternating eddy currents in the system you are measuring. They can also pick up electrical noise and read it as AC, of which cars are notorious for being one of the most electrically noisy environments made by man. Both are unlikely given where you measured and the quality of your meter, just something to keep in mind.

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'83 300DTurbo http://badges.fuelly.com/images/smallsig-us/318559.png

Broadband: more lies faster.