Alright children, here's an important lesson, which I have once again had re-enforced the hard way.

I knew perfectly well that I wasn't get perfect output from my alternator, but my brother had to catch a ferry in 15 minutes time and his ride hadn't turned up yet. I decided to see if my car would start.

It did, first time. I had thought the battery would be completely drained from the night before, but it seemed much healthier than the night before. We started it up and drove it down to the wharf.

As I drove down, I noticed my lights once again getting dimmer, confirming that I was still driving on battery. I decided that stopping the car would be a bad idea, so I just dropped off my brother and turned around to come home.

Now here's the problem. The Ferry wharf in balmain is at the bottom of a bloody big hill, where the main street ends in a bus turning circle. Buses run down to the wharf every 10 minutes or so, and the turning circle is a 24 hour tow away zone.

Of course I had to stall the engine doing a three point turn in the bus turning circle, at the bottom of a hill so steep that the old trams used to have a counterweight to pull them up it.

After pulling the tow eye off the front of my car, I had it towed home. Children, if you don't trust it, don't drive it.

Anyway thanks for putting up with me, how do I go about testing my alternators output?
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Drive it like you hate it