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We're having an unseasonably warm day today so I pushed the car out into the driveway so I could install the battery.  The new battery went dead overnight a while back - this means that either the alternator is bad or the battery is bad.  I'm not sure which one it is at this point but I'm seriously considering pulling the alternator out of the car and hooking the generator/voltage regulator back up to eliminate it as the culprit.

Once the car was in the driveway, I hooked up the battery and started the car.  The idle is very lumpy and it doesn't sound right.  I let the car warm up for about three minutes and right when I thought it was going to settle - it died.  And it would not restart.  The car sat for seven minutes before I tried to start it again...and failed.  The car would not start.  The battery went from 12.6 volts to 12.0 volts in that time.

I pulled both the alternator and the battery and dropped them off at Autozone for testing.  The battery was charged and tested good.  The alternator, however, failed the tests so I've sent an email to Anibal Chico to see about getting a replacement since it's less than a month in my possession.  I might just swap the generator back into the car...this is one excellent reason to make 'upgrades' reversible!  The generator is definitely 'low tech' but it was pretty reliable.  Hard to argue effectiveness sometimes.  There are so many holes in my lips that there isn't much left for the next hook...I've got to stop taking the bait.

I was able, however, to fix the non-functional right rear turn indicator - the contact on the back was loose.  Minor victory.  Very minor victory...