’96 Diesel Escort Van. The battery warning light seems to be very faintly illuminated on my van. Has been for a couple of weeks but seems to only happen intermitently, and not on every journey. Battery was replaced in January so I’d be surprised if there’s a problem with that. My thoughts are:

Fault with dynamo, so battery is undercharged?
Fault with warning light?
Old glow-plugs placing high demand on battery?

Drives and starts with no problems.

Any ideas?

Should I not worry and just keep going?

Dodgy Ford ‘lectrics would be my guess 🙂

Drive it till it breaks

Glow plugs only on when you start so not them
Dynamo – you use an alternator and you would have stopped starting if this was the issue but worth checking IMHO
Dodgy wiring – perhaps shorting out

EDIT : see below but good call re slipping belt but it will probably squeal when it does this or do it a the same revs

It is either a problem with the alternator (dyno’s stopped being used in the late 60’s) or I would check the belt that drives the alternator as well if this is slipping it could cause the light to glow.

Could also be a bad connection at the battery alsways worth removing them and giving them a quick clean up with a wire brush.

Old glow plugs should not cause this problem unless they are staying on all the time.

If you have a volt meter you should be able to measure the voltage with the engine running and I beleive it should be approx 14 volts if it is less than this it probably is the alternator.

A garage should be able to check this for free.