after returning from portland what a weekendand sitting around for to long the 69 beetle battery went flat,after a recharge we put him back in, to find smoke coming out of generator, we quickly removed battery,after connecting battery again,red light on dash is now coming on when battery reconnected,as this is our play car we have until october to fix!! any hints would be much apprecited
cherrs justin

i'm not 100% sure but i'd say you've had water in the dynamo, this has shorted it out, i'm afraid it may be fried, also check your voltage regulator as well.

See if she starts and then with a multimeter on the battery posts you should have between 13.8-14.4V. If more than this or at 12.4 or less then either regulator or genny are dead.

You can test the genny but can't remember how to do this and my book is miles away.

are you sure that all the wires are fitted right sounds like 1 is on the wrong pole
not the big buggers sometimes there is the odd stray wire

I'd go with stuck points in the voltage reg, may have damged the gen too when it was smoked

cheers fellas, we will check it out on weekend! have had back lid off and car covered? might explain water in gen?? we are going to get multi meter over car and check electrics!! Because we had a little fire in engine bay 2 weeks before portland on a little test drive , so i wipped motor out and off to vw mechanic to check if no damage done and engine rewire! we picked it up on thursday and headed straight to portland for vw drags, done at least 20 passes getting it home we had been starting it once or twice a week until battery went flat!! so was thinking gen!! took 2 cars up to see what time we would do?? and will progressivilly with time and money do up the 69 for drag or registered!

justin

All fixed,got a new regultator and replace it,have put multimeter on a few things?? and that seemed to be the problem!! generator appears ok!!
thanks again fellas