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Alternator woes

F

FokusDave

CEG'er
Joined
Aug 14, 2011
Messages
104
Location
Columbus, OH
Put a new alternator in last week. Next day noticed at night after turning it on and driving it I get a pulse in all the lights. Even the headlights pulse. Going to bring her in the shop tonight and check the battery terminals and run a voltage test. Praying its not a bad alternator. Im not really a mechanic and work at a Honda dealership so it took a Honda tech and I forever and a day just to swap the alternator. And I do not want to go thru that hell again. But it is what it is. Any suggestions if we cant find something obvious? Much appretiated. BTW the alternator we took off the housing was cracked all the way around. Mechanic said he had never seen that before lol. Car drives good and doesn't act up aside from the pulsating lights at night. Obviously don't notice during the day since lights are on.
 
Pulsating lights are common on this platform. There's a fairly easy "How-To" over on the NECO forum that will eliminate it...and you can perform the mod by taking the alternator wire and snaking it up to the topside of the engine and work on it there.

Tho first I'd confirm your alternator is performing correctly, your terminals on the battery are not corroded, and your ground wires are not oxidized where they attach to the body/engine.
 
hmm good info. Thank you. I have located the walk thru on how to fix the dimming on the cougar site. I will tackle that once I know that my alternator and battery are both function correctly. Thanks again.
 
(Untitled)

Chances are it's a bad reman alternator. Check the voltage when this is happening, chances are is fluctuating. The voltage regulator is most likely to blame.
 
Thanks for the info. Yeah I'm taking it to the dealership Friday. Just going to drop it off and let them diag it along with a few other issues I have been having. Father works there so hopefully wont get raped to bad lol. Rather Ford techs look at it since the Honda techs at my work don't really know domestics as much.
 
What's the difference in the cars???? NOTHING except the details, if you are good they come easily..................................they ALL pretty much work the same way.

Ditto on the crap alt, the morons making them now defect like 25% of them right out of the box. Why I went to rebuilding my own long ago.
 
Just a quick question... When you're driving it at night, do you have the a/c or defrost on? If so I'd check the a/c compressor isn't locking up. If you just had the heater on it wouldn't cause it because the compressor is only working while on a/c or defrost. This will cause a surge in power from the battery which will cause dash lights, dome light, headlights, taillights, etc to dim down for a second or two and return to full power.
 
Yeah I had to beg and plea just to find someone to help me with the alternator. And I got a younger tech whom I will give props to for trying but was a pain in the ass. Even Honda techs magically know the horrors of a contour and all the senior techs laughed at me when I was for help. I wasn't blessed with the know how to work on cars other than the basics or I would have done it myself. But yeah hoping don't have to remove the alternator again but looking like it might be defective we will find out Friday.

99contourse, to answer your question no I did not have the defrost or a/c on. My guess based on research on here and what some of you posted is wither bad wire to alternator or bad alternator we shall see. Aiming more to bad alternator since didn't have this issue until I changed it out.

Thanks for your replies.
 
*Update*

So dealer got back to me, they cant get the car to reproduce the pulsing lights. Which is weird seeing as it happened every night since replacing the alternator. But they said the charging system tests fine. So I guess I just wont worry about it.
So I figured while I had the vehicle there might as well have it looked over and address some other concerns I had with the vehicle. I would like to get your guys opinions on it and go from there.

1) Alternator. (read statement above)

2) Check engine light. They say I have a bad 02 sensor but previous owner said the check engine light has been on for years and replaced all the 02 sensors and it was still on. So who knows.

3) ABS Light. Guess they forgot to put that on the repair order. I assume its a ABS sensor.

4) A/C Diag. Said clutch was bad and might as well replace the whole compressor.

5) Driver seat doesn't move back and fourth. Said the tracks where bad and cant get them anymore. Thank God for CEG lol.

6) Door latch sticks sometimes and locks act up. Said I will need a whole latch assembly.

7) Window comes off track sometimes. Said I would need a new regulator.

8) Rough idle. Said I need new intake gaskets.

9) Front fog light comes on and off. Said I need new pigtail and bulb.

Think that is it. If I remember anything else ill update this post. But for them to fix all of that they want $2200 +tax. I laughed of course. I thought my dad would get a hook up but appearantly not. Guess Ill have to just find me a trusty tech up here at my work. Or the old Ford dealership I worked at up here. Because sadly I am not mechanicly inclined to do a lot of that stuff on the list. But as for parts I can get them fairly cheap. So I don't think the car is a loss like my dad would like to think. Granted due to money restrictions I wont be able to do everything at once but atleast I have an idea now. What do you guys think I should do on the list in order of importance?
 
FokusDave said:
*Update*

3) ABS Light. Guess they forgot to put that on the repair order. I assume it's an ABS sensor.
Click to expand...

I've just done this job. You will need to measure the resistance of each sensor to discover the faulty one, if you have one. The resistance should be between 1100 and 1500 ohms.

Steer away from cheap copies ... the resistance on them is often too low and the system won't accept them.

You will probably destroy the old sensor getting it out. ... that's why you need to make sure you have the right one.

It might be necessary to ream the hole to get the new sensor to fit..... (corrosion) ... G.L. ......G.
 
They tend to say that, it makes the most money. As with all mechs these days, they pick the highest price part and base the fee on that rather than simply fixing the lower cost ones.
If you can get hold of a super cheap analog type voltmeter you can easily hook it up to the abs sensor leads and spin the wheel to read the pulses, if none the sensor is bad.

A/c clutch if bearing not dead could easily be cheap man's rebuild to go for years longer and maybe 50 cents doing it. And why on earth would you then view it as necessary to buy the whole compressor over that??? I have never bought one ever and just keep working on the outlying parts to get the a/c back up and running for years more. Buying a compressor as the 'cure' is what most of the unlearned do and you should know that most people who do it then still never get the a/c running for long after that, they simply do it all wrong assuming the new parts 'fix everything'................they DON'T and OFTEN. I based my incentives on that when I was in parts. I'd bet based on my own experience that easily 60% of all a/c system spent money does nothing there. I certainly saw it happen enough. People think new parts cure everything but not in a/c, the lack of knowledge is the 800 lb. gorilla there, can't get around it.

On the alternator testing..........someone should be able to show the result of the 'ripple' test, or the diodes, if one is dropping out to come back in can easily be your idle flicker issue, it can come and go. The later Focus alts are positively horrible about it. New alts are a disaster now and apparently rebuilt by people who never went to school. 50% are bad right out of the box.

Window regulator? Commonly rebuildable by the owner, often at very low cost. I've rebuilt mine before at zero cost.

Foglight coming on/off can be simply corrosion on contacts, you clean them up and coat with bulb grease and no more trouble, did both mine a little while back (year) and not a peep of trouble from them since. One was not coming on at all to then start working an hour or more later, or not at all. Perfect now.

Driver's seat probably fixable with no cash outlay at all. You have to LOOK AT IT then THINK, or how you make money out of thin air.

Uh, only an idiot would leave a check engine light on for years and absolutely that person does not belong working on cars.
 
amc49 said:
They tend to say that, it makes the most money. As with all mechs these days, they pick the highest price part and base the fee on that rather than simply fixing the lower cost ones.
If you can get hold of a super cheap analog type voltmeter you can easily hook it up to the abs sensor leads and spin the wheel to read the pulses, if none the sensor is bad.
Click to expand...

The Ford ABS sensors (hall sensors) should generate a mV reading correct?
 
Hall effect requires 3 wires, these are 2 IIRC...............meaning standard magnetic proximity sensor with no transistor inside. Yes, millivolt. Use dc as low as it will go and spin it, the meter needle will bump up/down at every tooth passing the magnet and why old school 'junk' needle type meters still have some usefulness, they work good on checking crank and cam sensors as well.
 
Very good advice amc49. I wish I had more know how on working on cars. I can do the basics but that's about it. Hell I don't even own any tools. So I have to rely on what others tell me. I know I could save so much money if I did everything myself. After my dad saw all the car needed he is trying to get me to sell it. Since he is in the sales side of the things said if I sell the car he will match what I get for it towards a late model used or new car. I honestly am sick of putting money every month into cars. And with another baby on the way I wont have money to throw into the car all the time. But if I was single and no kids Id keep her and get fixed to a tee. So I put her on craigslist for around kbb fair condition. If it sells it sells if not ill drive her till she breaks lol. But thanks again for the advice.
 
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