I have a few questions regarding a purchase of a '94 940 non-turbo.
Here's (mostly) what he says on the ad, and I'm very confused about it and it's severity-
"Alternator sometimes doesn't charge on its own, but will after jumper lead from positive battery terminal to 'exciter' circuit terminal on alternator."

I'm good with electrical and basic maintenance but have no idea what that means, and can't find much on it.
Another quick one- is the battery (940 n/a wagon) in the engine bay or trunk? Have looked at many photos of this engine and can't see a battery.

Car also idles rough, he says it appears to be a vacuum leak at EGR diaphragm, or faulty o2 sensor.

Would this be a good purchase (for around $600) for a "Mountain Trip" car~less than 300 miles/month?
Needs a battery too, but don't want to buy one if the alternator will ruin it!
TIA!

 

the alternator has a D+ terminal which is connected to the alternator/battery light on the dashboard, and the other side of that light is connected to the ignition switch. if that wire is broken, or that bulb is out, then the alternator won't bootstrap itself and generate charging current.

rough idle is unlikely to be O2 sensor related, and probably not EGR either (does a maine car even HAVE egr? thats a california-only thing). rough idles are more typically related to air intake leaks, cracked vacuum hoses, or fouled up idle air controller. or gummed up throttle body.

the battery is in the engine compartment, front right side if its a non-turbo, front left if its a turbo (thats front and left/right from the CARS perspective, not yours as you stand in front and look backwards). its down behind the headlight on which ever side its on.

 

Wow thank you for clearing all that up!
Yes, every vehicle here has an EGR. (As far as I know) My '04 Taurus does.

I'll look into the vacuum leaks and clean the throttle body out if I can negotiate a fair price.

For the alternator, if I trace that wire and remove the instrument cluster, replace bulb and inspect+repair and wires, it should fix the no charge issue?

 

well, to start, ignition on without starting, and the ALT/BATT light (whatever its labeled) should light up. and there should be 12V at that D+ terminal on the alternator.

if not, yeah, time to start troubleshooting why not...

on my 92 740(same as 92 940), the D+ circuit is a red wire that goes through two connectors, B pin 22 (left A post) and A pin 4 (left suspension tower). Connector B is a great big thing of like 4-5 rows of bunches of pins. connector A is a 2x4 (8) pin connector, thats probably easier to access, so if you turn on the ignition, you should see 12V on that red wire if you probe into the connector (without unplugging it).

 

I'll look into that. He said that if the battery indicator light isn't on when the key is forward, the alt. won't charge. He also said that sometimes you can wiggle the wires under the dash, and the light will come on and the alt will charge like it should. So it must be a bad connection behind the instrument cluster?

One more question is that I can't find a reasonably priced battery for it (group 47) because I've read by an old post by you that it can't be a sealed battery, i.e. Everstart, Duralast etc. and I can't find any vented batteries. Only Walmart's H7 sealed battery that says it fits

 

all batteries today are crappier quality than they were 10+ years ago, lead prices are sky high, so they are using the bare minimum lead they can get away with.

the correct battery has a flange on the bottom that the holddown clamps work on, but you COULD use any battery that fits in the opening and has the posts in the right order and place, then use a strap or something to hold it down.

 

I ended up passing on that 940, he wanted too much for it.
I have some other options, though.

I have a question about the way the 940's look, on some of them they seem to have built in "fog lights", on others they don't. Is this a trim level?

The one without fog lights (silver) looks much cleaner to me, but that's probably because they aren't foggy?




TIA

 

yeah, the more up-trim models have the fogs. they are all wired for them (at least, my non-fog 92 was), so to add aftermarket fogs, like the MicroDE I mounted under my bomper, simply requires swapping the 2-way fog switch, and adding the fog relay to the main relay panel, then finding a 2-pin connector behind each headlight.