Scottish Elises

I am sure this is a simple fix, although I've said that in the past..

Started the Elise on Sunday to give it a quick run out, battery been on charge for some time on the Optimiser over winter. Was a fairly new battery in any case and it appears in good order. Battery light now won’t go off when the engine is running/ignition on, yet she starts first time and seems to tick over smoothly. Wonder if my alternator is goosed? Car has been sat outside for many a month now, occasional use, hoping to have more use this year.

In my head I've ruled out a dodgy earth connection, as she starts first turn of the key. All lights etc work fine, can't see any flickering/momentary dimming of the dash lights as I turn heaters on/off etc.

Thoughts please?

Unfortunately none from Robin Iain as he is no longer on here.

Plenty of others though and Scuffers reads most posts.

tut

Ps:- easy to check the alternator with a voltmeter. Check battery voltage without the engine running, start up and the battery voltage should be around 1.5 volts higher if it is charging.

tut

tut wrote:Ps:- easy to check the alternator with a voltmeter. Check battery voltage without the engine running, start up and the battery voltage should be around 1.5 volts higher if it is charging.

tut

Thank tut, will give that a go :

No Robin?? I missed that memo...

Mine was the alternator

As Tut says voltage at battery should be about 12 to 13 Volts with everything off and this reading should go up to over 14 Volts with the engine running.

If it doesen't then the Alternator is the most likely cause and if it's a good few years old then not that unusual to go.....

Also if you can get access Iain, check the thin wire that goes into the front of the alternator housing, it is fragile on the older cars and also suffers from overheating and brittleness and snaps easily.

tut

Checked it this morning, 12.74V at rest, 11.78V when ticking over. Splendid, looks like a goosed alternator. I know you emailed me a price tut, where was that from?

I presume this is a undertray off job, still will give the excuse to change over the bolts to stainless as I still have some left from the Lotus Ecosse days, every cloud...

The silly price of £640+ was DeRoure, though hard to believe if that is Lotus price.

I would just go from here, not OEM but a years warranty. The MG TF 1.8 is also the same.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LOTUS-ELISE-S ... Swf-VWYBeE

tut

timmsky wrote:Checked it this morning, 12.74V at rest, 11.78V when ticking over. Splendid, looks like a goosed alternator. I know you emailed me a price tut, where was that from?

I presume this is a undertray off job, still will give the excuse to change over the bolts to stainless as I still have some left from the Lotus Ecosse days, every cloud...

When I changed mine I did it via the wheel arch.

From Ali's SELOC fitting guide, make sure that you check that wire before you do any unbolting.

Drop Robin a mail on robiniddon@gmail.com and he will also advise.

tut

tut wrote:The silly price of £640+ was DeRoure, though hard to believe if that is Lotus price.

I would just go from here, not OEM but a years warranty. The MG TF 1.8 is also the same.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LOTUS-ELISE-S ... Swf-VWYBeE

tut

Doesn't post to Scottish Highlands

Dear Mr eBayer, You know we do have a postal service up here, it came in just after the 3rd telebhision channel in 2012... Sassenach..

Agree with previous posts - does sound like a probable alternator failure but check the simple things like wiring first.....

When I changed mine I did it via the wheelarch liner too - Bit of a tight spaced knuckle scraping job but it is not a horrendous job to do. I think it's maybe easier with the undertray off to deal with the wiring & belt adjuster but not sure on that one....

I'm wary of pattern alternators and how long they will last so I manged to get a genuine Nippon Denso / Magnetti Morelli alternator when I did mine like this 65amp one on ebay which is not bad at £70 delivered ;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alternator-Ro ... PdY783Wb2g

One of the important things I seem to remember to match up is the wiring connections as the earlier K series alternators had bolt on connectors and the later ones e.g. S2 Elises had plug in connectors.

Thanks all, I need to determine if mine has the 2-pin plug on it - it should have as a 2003 car, but with Lotus you can never tell

Looks like accessing it through the wheel arch is the way forward which is better tbh as I always find taking the trays off to be a major PIA but only because I'm inherently lazy