06 V50 AWD manual alternator connector question?

[scot850]

After cleaning all the grounds on the strut towers, I moved onto look at other areas of wiring. The first thing that caught my eye was a wiring repair on a cable to the back of the alternator. There are only 2 wires that leave the alternator rear, the large red cable to the starter and then battery, and then a small one I'll call a control wire to the voltage regulator from the ECM.

I will post pictures tomorrow once my phone has recharges, but the strange part is that the connector has 3 wires exiting it and they are all black. 2 of them are cut off about 4" from the connector and then they have been shrink wrapped in black shrink wrapping.

The 3rd wire is has then been attacked to a small red/white wire into the wiring harness with a couple of wiring repairs and head shrink.

There are a couple of questions:

1) The wire from the connector on the rear of the alternator to the ECM is probably twice the diameter of the wire it is connected to. That looks hocky, but is that normal?
2) The only wire used in this case from the rear of the alternator is the central one and that is soldered to the line to the ECM. So what and what are the 2 other cables for? The wiring diagram shows 3 red/white wires exiting the alternator and running to 3 different versions of the ECM. Is this the way these all look like as I have no comparison or experience of the P1? The wiring diagram does not seem to differentiate between if the same central wire can be used in all variants, or does each wire get connected depending on if it is a diesel, and NA or a Turbo as shown in the diagram? Does anyone know if maybe these cables are connected differently depending on engine variant?
3) The wiring diagram shows the wire running to each of the 3 engine types, but they seem to be connected to different pins on the connectors of each ECM.

Does anyone know if this is just a major piece on a hack job or if this is correct, or what should be correct for the Manual T50 AWD?

Thanks,

Neil.

[scot850]

OK here are few pictures which make me concerned, but it may all be ok:

Wiring to alternator

PXL_20240409_231738548.jpg (403.05 KiB) Viewed 885 times

Does this wiring look factory? That weird stubby with 2 wires shrink wrapped and only the center one is being used. Then the black wire runs to a smaller diameter wire in the harness?

connector to alternator

PXL_20240410_020031734.jpg (504.63 KiB) Viewed 885 times

Looking at this picture in a larger scale, it looks like the center wire is maybe damaged where it enters the plug!

connector to alternator (2)

PXL_20240410_140339403.MP.jpg (277.84 KiB) Viewed 885 times

Below is a screen shot of the wiring diagram. What does not make sense to me is the alternator shows the control wire as A:1 For me normal would mean 3 wires connections in a row would have A:! at either of the ends and not in the middle?

wiring diagram

PXL_20240410_020649035.jpg (416.86 KiB) Viewed 885 times

If anyone has a P1 and could take a picture of the alternator connection and post it I would much appreciate it.

Neil.

[Richard99]

Let me see what I can do for you this afternoon.

[scot850]

That would be much appreciated.

The car is currently (no pun intended) running. I hope I am not jinxing it as I have not heard anything from the owner in a about 4 days. At last text it was running at around 175F on the touchless thermometer pointed at the top of the alternator body. No stalls either.

I am beginning to think some of the issues are unfortunate bad luck (battery failing) but that could in turn have damaged the original alternator. Still need to get that investigated for why that Bosch reman failed. Amazon alternator may have failed as it was junk (at least 50% of the buyers had DOA or early failures). I am thinking the used junkyard one may be a Denso unit. Looking at pictures on EBay of used alternators for sale, the remaining label looks in the same spot along with the rust on the casing.

We are going to see if it now runs for a few weeks before spending any more money on the car. The student owner has limited funds and we have a reasonable list of work needing done to even get the car to a reasonable Stage 0.

Neil.