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UH-OH! Alternator or battery??

P

PurpleMystique

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Nov 16, 2004
Messages
2,602
Location
Greater Des Moines Area
This morning I noticed my battery light flickering at ~4000rpm. Over lunch break it would flicker or go solid above ~2000rpm. After work, the car had a little trouble cranking but finally started. Right out of the parking lot, I lost my tach and the airbag, ABS, brake, fuel, etc. lights all came on, but the car still ran. I made it onto the interstate okay, but noticed if I gave it more than ~20% throttle it'd bog down. I pulled off of the interstate and it got worse, to the point where giving it ANY throttle caused it to bog down. I barely made it to my girlfriend's apartment, where I shut my car off. Trying to restart it results in clicking.

I'm stuck here for now (there are worse places to be stuck, I suppose) but I'm not sure what this would be. Is it a bad battery that wouldn't charge or is it a bad alternator that wouldn't charge a battery. I noticed right off the bat that there was no A/C - the "fan" worked okay, even though it felt a bit weak, but turning the dial to an A/C or defrost position did nothing. The belt seemed fine and had plenty of tension. I can easily pull the battery and have that tested at an auto parts store, should that be my next step, or is it obviously the alternator?

If so, is it worth busting my knuckles and replacing it or should I bite the bullet and have a shop do it? I have the tools and the resources, but maybe not the patience...
 
check your charging output with a volt meter, anything over 14.5 volts means your alternator is toast, with the abs light on and what not that tells me you alternator is overcharging your battery
 
overcharge?...that's the first time I hear that, look out for a ready to pop battery then.

When my alt got busted it was barely pulling 7 v to the battery and megafuse; it should be charging 14 v constant.
 
alex894 said:
overcharge?...that's the first time I hear that, look out for a ready to pop battery then.

When my alt got busted it was barely pulling 7 v to the battery and megafuse; it should be charging 14 v constant.
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i had a ps fluid leak and it dripped onto the alternator and it was charging the battery at 18 volts :crazy: blew the little covers off of the battery and shot acid everywhere:crazy:
 
mattsBLK99cSVT said:
i had a ps fluid leak and it dripped onto the alternator and it was charging the battery at 18 volts :crazy: blew the little covers off of the battery and shot acid everywhere:crazy:
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Well, I put the charger on the battery at the girlfriend's apartment for a couple hours which it turns out was just enough to get me about halfway home...oops. She graciously came and picked up me, we ran to Wal-Mart to grab a new battery that could at least get me home. Keep in mind it's currently 13 degrees out with a windchill of 1 below zero and light snow flurries.

Well, without a light or an actual wrench, I couldn't get the terminals off of the current battery, so I gave up and had her take me home, and I called to make sure the car wouldn't get towed.

Once I got home I realized my work laptop was in my back seat. And I need it for work tomorrow. And my only other functional vehicle is a 1974 Honda CB200. So off I went. It was a half-hour ride each way getting tossed around by the wind, I stopped once at a gas station to warm up - my hands were so cold that warming them up hurt quite a bit. I'll have to ride the bike to work tomorrow too. I love my life.
 
alternator - getting a new battery right away wasn't a good idea. a simple jump-start would have gotten you the same distance. Good luck.
 
My alternator did the same thing when it went. FWIW, the alternator is my least favorite repair, not super hard, but just a pain in the butt. It was such a tight fit, that I could see shops charging a pretty decent fee for this job. I'd do it myself, if possible, but if weather is again a factor, it might be worth the extra $ to have someone else do it for you.
 
Well I haven't installed the battery yet, so there's still the option of returning it. My only problem is that I'm going to be trying to get this car home during rush hour on some of the busiest streets in Des Moines...
 
You should bring about 3 full charged batteries then and change them on the fly when one dies :shrug:.

I would take a ciggy plug power inverter, plug a trickle charger into the power inverter, and hook the + & - up from the trickle charger to your battery :crazy:. That way your dead battery can charge your dead battery :eek:.
 
blu_fuz said:
You should bring about 3 full charged batteries then and change them on the fly when one dies :shrug:.
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thats what we did when bagged and I bought a Contour SE with a bad Alternator, brought two charged batteries along, threw one in, drove it the whole way, never even needed the 2nd battery, you would be surprised how long you can drive a car which is just running off of a discharging battery, provided its fully charged.
 
Hm...I'm reading about 0.75 ohms across my megafuse. Good? Bad?

At the rate I'm going, I won't have this done until next week. The megafuse wire melted itself to the EGR tube wrap. Complete PITA.
 
PurpleMystique said:
Hm...I'm reading about 0.75 ohms across my megafuse. Good? Bad?

At the rate I'm going, I won't have this done until next week. The megafuse wire melted itself to the EGR tube wrap. Complete PITA.
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NOT good....a good megafuse should measure 1 ohm

clean your contact points and measure again.....oh man...megafuses don't look easy to replace.
 
Don't drive the car at night, you will go 10 times further during the day with no light use. At night, unplug a headlight and taillight, kill dashlights to conserve power. If the cops come, tell them it's better than stranding the car in the dark where someone can hit it. I actually did that once, and once they knew the story, they let me go on.
 
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