OK, thanks all for the help. I will check out my wiring harness tommorrow at the points specified and I will check that all cables that are attached to my alternator and I will check my alternator mount. Hopefully, nothing will get expensive during the fix. Thanks again.

I had very similar symptoms.. squealing.. and while the squealing persisted the alternator wasn't charging. Turned out the bottom bolt had fallen out of alternator mount bracket. Oops. I guess the friend I paid to push in the bushings (silly me, didn't lube them at all and one got stuck) didn't properly put a nut on there. So:

do another visual check of your alternator. do the belts look like they're tensioned equally? are the mounting bolts there? how do the rubber things (bushings) surrounding the bolts look? are they oily (time to replace). IPD (*sigh*stillwaitingforthemtogettheironlineorderingacttogether*SIGH*) sells polyurethane bushings for this application. if the bushings are shot, the alternator might be able to move around enough to cause the squealing. otherwise it might be time to just retension the belt (OH JOY!).

SO. There should be three wires to your alternator. Two big ones (one from the battery across the front of the engine, one *short* one for the ground right to the side of the block). There's a third one. My current alternator (Bosch reman from an 86) uses a terminal that would require the wire to have a thingy on the end looking like: o--- (or such), the other (original) one used a blade type connector. This third one is fairly important. If it's not there, the alternator won't start charging (it carries a bit of juice from the coil I think). If the alternator isn't charging your idiot lights will be on (I believe because of a lack of ground).

Since you've got a non turbo it's easy to see what's hooked up to the alt... if you were to replace the mount bushings (easier than getting the belts on and off!), that would be a prime opportunity to make sure everything's connected as it should be. On muh brick the little exciter wire was nearly rotted away (two strands of wire remain(ed)).

- alex

'85 244 Turbo

Those four warning lights share a ground circuit that involves the alternator. They come one when the engine is running because that wire is grounding in a wrong place.

Look on the firewall for a large gray connector, it has spaces for 8 wires but only 4 are used. Those 4 are the wires that loose insulation. Once the connector is disconnected, you can open up the female side of the connector - the back has a little door on hinges and is held shut with little things on the end. Use your bifocals if needed. With the door open, the wires can all come out.

That means one could run a new wire, using the original terminal, to the proper other end. The Y goes to the temp gauge input, the red goes to the alternator, the black goes to the oil pressure sender, and the BL-Y goes to the starter.

Most often it's the red and black that go bad. Run new wires from the connector to the RH fender and thence down to the alternator and the oil pressure sender.

The thin red wire on the alternator is essential for the alternator to charge. If the 4 warning lights are on and the engine is running, there is no charging.

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)

86 is a wire harness rot year. Try to repair it at the degraded exposed areas. The noise might be belts or harmonic balancer. Look at the rubber liner between the halves of the crank pulley. If it is badly cracked and moving forward out of position, the balancer is shot. Remove the preheat hose and the thermostat and flap in the air box. The green wire s=sounds like the oil pressure idiot light wire that connects to the sensor behind the alternator.