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Battery Light Revisited

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RawBurt

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Problem remain after trying many different things. It comes on at about 4800 RPM and stays on all the way till redline. Really quickly the volts will drop down to about 12.5 twice, and after that its normal all the way up to redline. Recently my car has been running at about 13 volts, and you can actually see it drop when you hit the brakes and watch it come back to about 13 when you release, something is obviously very weak and on its way out. Things I've done;

Checked and cleaned MOST grounds
Replaced megafuse
Did the alternator wiring fix
Relocated the battery

Other things to point out, I am running a bosch alternator and a motorcraft battery. I'm thinking I'm going to take the alternator out this weekend and swap in a new one since I have a lifetime warranty on it and I'm getting so good at it, lol.

Any ideas, input, questions would be greatly appreciated. I know we've been over this before, but I'm still trying. And please keep the flaming and whatnot out of this thread, I would like to keep it positive and constructive.

TIA :cool:
 
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I would put a voltmeter on the battery with engine running and accessorys off. should be about 13.8-14.1 then turn on everything. Heaterblower, domelights, radio, rear defog, headlights, highbeams, foglights. If it starts dropping like a rock (the voltage) you know the alt regulator is bad.

I'm sure you did your terminals already (nice clean tight) and the 4ga wire running from the neg to the engineblock/transmission. Another thing could be a shorted/weak cell in the battery. It might be a good idea to have the battery load tested for S&Gs
 
Although you should check the voltage with the engine reved up, I most suspect you have an alternator problem. Either the voltage regulator, rotor winding messing up at higher revs, or a brush problem. Any of those three would be part of the alternator.
 
Thanks for the ideas, keep them coming in. I almost certain that this is an alternator issue, the thing is, I believe there is something that is causing my alternators to go. I've been through quite a few in the time I've had this SVT. 2+ years and at least 5 alternators.
 
Watch out with these remanufactured alternators... I went through a few before finally getting a good one.

Deal was, my mega fuse blew for whatever reason, I thought it was the alternator (no battery light), so I replaced it with an Autozone one. Didn't help, so I swapped it out with the original and fixed the mega fuse.

About a month later, the original overheated and melted all the wires/connectors. I found a Mystique in the junkyard and pulled all the wires coming off the alternator. This time went to O'Reilly and got an alternator there (cheaper IIRC). It worked... for about a few weeks to a month.

Now, I go back and their test machine was dead. So no way to test except me driving the car there after charging the battery so they can see it's not putting out voltage. They gave me another alternator, which worked for a few days until the bearings went out (couldn't turn the shaft by hand).

They gave me another alternator with a gold or bronze colored pulley. I tried to put it on, but the pully was just a smidge too big, so I couldn't get the belt on it (probly would have killed the bearings anyway if I could). No idea why a different pulley ended up on it, but whatever... So the lady (she knew my brother, so was cool) gave me the last one on the shelf and ordered 5 from the warehouse just for me.

About a month later, this one died, but no battery light again. No idea why it died, but I did notice that without the 12V line that energizes the stator (the little single connector), the battery light doesn't come on, so I guess internally it wasn't hooked up. Go back and apparantly the store manager wasn't too amused with her ordering 5 of those, but she was off the hook since their bench tester was reparied... ALL 5 TESTED BAD!

So they called a store about 60 miles away and they had 3 on hand. They had them test them before sending it up, and 2 of the 3 tested bad.

Sent up the good one, and the manager made sure he talked to me when I was exchanging. He was going to give me the one, but was voiding my warranty since there must be something wrong with my car:rolleyes:

Well, turns out that last one was the good one! Lasted for another 1.5 years (and 20-some-odd thousand miles) and still going strong when I traded the car in. It had to be bad rebuilds since I abused the car more after all this fiasco was done... I worked for 2 different pizza places, then went in the AF and had it driven to Texas (and all around there), then drove it back to Iowa and then finally to Montana.

So make sure they bench test them before giving them to you... when they get a bad alternator, they send it to a shop to replace ONLY the things that went bad. So if the voltage regulator was bad, they'll replace that... nevermind if it came off a 250,000 mile car and the bearings are on their last leg. That's what makes the remans so much cheaper than new.

One of the things I noticed about all the ones that ended up going bad in short order all had a non Motorcraft voltage regulator on them. The only remans with a proper regulator was the one with too big a pulley and the last one...
 
Yea but Rawburt isn't so smare. He'd rather dump money on a turbo kit, put it on an old engine and put in 5 reman. alternators instead of a new Motorcraft that you know will not have issue.
 
RawBurt said:
And please keep the flaming and whatnot out of this thread, I would like to keep it positive and constructive.
Click to expand...

To todd and steeda!

What the hell does a turbo kit and an engine with over 100k have to do with anything?! And a professional has looked at it, and guess what, found nothing.

BDK, thanks for the response.
 
Rawburt, you and I had almost the same exact problem. Replace the alternator again because the one you have is probably faulty. After the replacement I still had the problem of the battery light coming on occasionally and I kept on blowing megafuses afterwards. One thing that I found was that the megafuse terminals were badly corroded and needed to be sanded down until I got them clean. It's just an idea but you might want to check that as well.
 
RawBurt said:
To todd and steeda!

What the hell does a turbo kit and an engine with over 100k have to do with anything?! And a professional has looked at it, and guess what, found nothing.

BDK, thanks for the response.
Click to expand...

Doesnt sound like their doing much more than what you do in the HID threads... Its annoying aint it.
 
RawBurt said:
To todd and steeda!

What the hell does a turbo kit and an engine with over 100k have to do with anything?! And a professional has looked at it, and guess what, found nothing.

BDK, thanks for the response.
Click to expand...


#1 It has alot to do with it
#2 Welp there is obviously something wrong. calling you or any of your friends professionals doesn't count.
 
You're right I nor any of my friends are professionals. I had it into ford (i know electrical isnt their profession) but they looked for shorts and what not and found nothing.

The reason I have been stalling so long to get a motorcraft alternator is becuase I don't want to spend the extra money on something that could potentially not even solve the problem. But it looks like my last resort.
 
RawBurt said:
I don't want to spend the extra money on something that could potentially not even solve the problem. But it looks like my last resort.
Click to expand...

Umm at the age of the car and age of the alternator you don't think it's a good idea to replace as preventative maint.?!:rolleyes: Even if it isn't giving you issues. I don't want my car to leave me straded because of something I could and should change as the car ages.
 
Right I understand the concept of preventative maintanence and I'm really good with that. The alternator in right now only has a couple thousand miles on it.
 
Yea we all know that! It's not OEM though! There are very few PM things I'd go to Ford for.

1. Alt
2. IAC
 
I get my alts rewound/new voltage regulator. Don't have to worry about the BS of autozone/murrays
 
This may have nothing to do with your problem, but I'll relate what I had happen with my evil battery light.

So my alternator failed at 99K on my 1999 Contour SE. no biggie, I planned on keeping the car for a while, so I bought the Ford Alt and installed. Took it out and still had a light @ 5K to red line. Hmmm... ok, I'll do the wire fix.... Still had the light at 5K. Ok replace megafuse, grounding straps and all positive wiring to the alt. Still Light at 5K.

Now, i don't drive the hell out of my SE, it rarely sees 5K unless I am going out for some fun or I have to accel quickly to get around someone, so I figured so long as it keeps charging, we will leave it at that. So come about 3 weeks ago, I put on new Autolight Professional wires and E3 plugs (I know, I know, should stay with the ones we know work, but I like to experiment). Took her out for the test drive, and I noticed no light. Hmm... Maybe I missed it. So I wound it out again, no light. 5 more tests, no light.

I gotta wonder if as our car ages, the electrical system can't handle the load at high RPM of some of these plugs and wires we install aftermarket. Anyone who is still getting the light willing to try the switch as well and see if it works for you?
 
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