Ah.... this points to what I said in one of my first posts - that there's the POSSIBILITY of an intermittent fault. Never known this to happen with a rectifier, before, but stranger things have happened. I'd still get the battery properly tested, just to give you peace of mind that the faulty rectifier hasn't caused any damage. Glad you've got it sorted, but you never told us about the "strange" readings on the rectifier - in fact, it appeared that you hadn't even tested it - so that's why we were so sure that it wasn't that.
