mysterous battery light

[tower]

I'm looking for some more experience from the board.

Symptoms:

Saturday morning I tried to start the 95S420. It ran rough and stalled almost immediately. Upon restart (slow cranking), the battery light was on. Taking the trusty multimeter to the battery I got 12.1v. Turning on all the head lights (high beams, etc), the voltage at the battery fell to 11.8v. Okay...sounds like an altenator/regulator issue. Since the car is running, I decided to get the coffee/paper anyways. About a kilometer down the road, the battery light goes off, on its own. Returning home with the multimeter shows 14.2 volts going to the battery.

Regardless, under cheap insurance, I changed the voltage regulator on Sunday. Who ever said this is easy to do obviously hasn't been under a 95S420. Space is very limited but it still took me over 3 hours to get the old one off. Slightly under 1 hour to install the new one.

The old unit still had more than 1/4" of brush left but I felt it prudent to replace it anyways as I start a 600mile round trip to the colder country this morning.

My question after reviewing the charging system schematic is, is there anything else I've missed as to what the cause could be? The charging system appears to be self contained within the alternator and doesn't get any feedback or use of the computers. Your thoughts guys?

Ron