Hello,

I am really in need of some help.
I have been working on my 1982 240D for about six months now.

It all started when the battery began to boil.
It turned out the alternator was sending too much voltage to the battery.

Not having the experience to figure out what to replace, I bought a whole new alternator instead of just the regulator, which Autozone didn't carry anyways.
I also bought a new battery at the same time.

A month or so later, the car just stopped charging.
I took the car to Autozone and they said the alternator had gone bad, so I had to take the damn thing apart in the Autozone parking lot and change the alternator again.
The battery was tested and was fine.
This happened again 2 more times.
This last time I worked on the car, after reading through these forums for hours, I found that the battery light could cause the charging to not work, so I replaced the burned out battery light.

I had to go to another parts store to buy the voltage regulator and it's now charging again.

My concern is, that this will happen again.
I am wondering what could be causing the voltage regulators to keep burning out, when I started with an overvolting regulator in the beginning.

I also noticed that the brake wear indicator light is flashing randomly and that could be a sign of bad wiring going to the sensor.
Could that be causing a short bad enough to blow my voltage regulator?

The ground cable to the battery seems to be fine and the ground strap to the engine is in tact.

PLEASE HELP!

I am seriously considering building an external voltage regulator with it's own ground.
I found plans to do so on this site here: Car Alternator Regulators

.

...
autozoo parts are often bad in the box...
rarely last long, and the "lifetime warranty" equates to "we'll keep giving you more junk parts until your lifetime teaches you to pull a good used part from a junkyard, or you wise up and order from an authorized parts rebuilder..."

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

definitely not unusual for an autozone/oreilly/pepboys part like that to fail within a year. i went through three pep boys alternators on an old vw golf once in the span of a year.

__________________
1981 NA 300D 310k miles