Anyway, recently the alternator had been failing to charge the battery, even thought the battery was only 13 weeks old. Even with the car running, the system voltage was only around 10 volts or so, as opposed to the 13.5 that was expected. I pulled out the bible for this car, the Bentley manual (no relation to the car company). This is pretty much the greatest troubleshooting book I have ever read. Thumbing through the section on the charging system, there was a paragraph that addressed my problem perfectly. I was afraid I was going to have to replace the whole alternator, which would have been a huge pain. Instead, the book suggested I check the voltage regulator, which just screws into the back of the alternator. After disconnecting the battery to avoid channeling 80 amps through my fingers, I unscrewed the voltage regulator. The book said that the contacts should be at least 5mm long, but preferably more like 12.5mm long. Mine were approximately 2mm long. I was on to something.
I called a few auto parts stores in the area and none of them had it. I finally located the part at an O'Reilly's almost 15 miles away, on the far side of Phoenix. I asked my roommate to drive me over there, and he obliged. Unfortunately, they didn't actually have the part. If they did, they would have charged me $104.95 for it, which was much different from what I had heard on the phone. Frustrated, I returned home.
I decided the internet would be less frustrating, so I went straight to Pelican Parts, who have never done me wrong when it comes to parts for my old BMW. I found the part I wanted for 1/5 the cost of the local parts store. I ordered a few more small parts at the same time, since they didn't add to the shipping, and they all arrived two days later. Here's a comparison picture of the old regulator and the new regulator:
You can see that the two prongs sticking out of the new part (bottom) are much, much longer than the old one. I screwed the new one in, reconnected the battery, and started the car. (Luckily, I still had enough charge in the battery to get it to crank.) With trepidation, I took the multimeter to the battery. 13.5 volts! Everything was working again.
This success inspired a few other minor projects during the day, but I was mostly just glad to have my car back. I hadn't picked up groceries in a while because I was afraid my car wouldn't start if I drove it anywhere!
Anyway, if you have problems with your E30, the Bentley manual and Pelican Parts are two great resources. Pelican has a number of technical articles that are a great supplement to the Bentley book.
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