jvandyke
True Classic
It's my fault. The car warned me.
Volt meter was low, I rigged up a second one, it was low. Put tester on alternator and it read 12v and no higher. I took off for work anyway. Slowly lost lights and then engine started to complain, pulled over and shut her down.
Now I was hacking the daylights out of my instrument cluster and messing about a bit in the relay nest but I don't think that had anything to do with it since a test right at the alternator shows it is not producing.
Any advice is welcome. I'm hoping to get a charge back in the battery and limp home to diagnose and likely put in another alternator.
Here's how it was hooked up and working fine for a month.
Brackets and "turnbuckle" look fine, belt seems tight, pully and alt fine spinning fine. Wire connections at alt look fine.
Any chance it's the "sense" circuit on the alternator? That line is currently just jumped over to the main lug of the alt so it "self senses" which is the traditional way to hook up a GM alternator, no?
This thing was flaky when I first installed it too, I actually pulled it back out, brought it in and it tested great, put it back on and all was well until now.
Could it be all the mucking about with lights pulled the battery flat enough that it wouldn't let the alternator "sense" enough voltage to start charging? I don't understand how that works, obviously...
I put the battery on a tender last night an it read "charged" right away, left there all night anyway.
Now, to get the X home I was hoping to put it on the charger (tender) which I brought with me for a few hours, get enough juice in the battery to limp home (about 10 miles).
Volt meter was low, I rigged up a second one, it was low. Put tester on alternator and it read 12v and no higher. I took off for work anyway. Slowly lost lights and then engine started to complain, pulled over and shut her down.
Now I was hacking the daylights out of my instrument cluster and messing about a bit in the relay nest but I don't think that had anything to do with it since a test right at the alternator shows it is not producing.
Any advice is welcome. I'm hoping to get a charge back in the battery and limp home to diagnose and likely put in another alternator.
Here's how it was hooked up and working fine for a month.
Brackets and "turnbuckle" look fine, belt seems tight, pully and alt fine spinning fine. Wire connections at alt look fine.
Any chance it's the "sense" circuit on the alternator? That line is currently just jumped over to the main lug of the alt so it "self senses" which is the traditional way to hook up a GM alternator, no?
This thing was flaky when I first installed it too, I actually pulled it back out, brought it in and it tested great, put it back on and all was well until now.
Could it be all the mucking about with lights pulled the battery flat enough that it wouldn't let the alternator "sense" enough voltage to start charging? I don't understand how that works, obviously...
I put the battery on a tender last night an it read "charged" right away, left there all night anyway.
Now, to get the X home I was hoping to put it on the charger (tender) which I brought with me for a few hours, get enough juice in the battery to limp home (about 10 miles).