Hello, everyone! I am the registered owner of the contour in question here. I just pulled the 175A Megafuse and tested it. Turned out OK. I am really puzzled by the way the car is responding. It will charge fine for hours or days, and then suddenly will stop charging. As you all have read above, theis is the second alternator in the car, so that eliminates the possiblity of that being the culprit. Battery is new, as well.
The only sign that the alternator has stopped charging is the absence of the idiot light at startup. If I remove the plug from behind the alternator and ground the green wire to the negative battery post while the ignition is on, the light will illuminate (as per the test outlined in the factory service manual). I then reinstall the plug in the alternator and then it charges fine for an undetermined amount of time before the problem repeats itself.
I obviously don't trust the car to travel more than 2 or 3 miles from home and am running out of possible solutions. I already sanded clean all electrical connections that I can find. It is not an issue as faar as grounding of the alternator itself, as I have taken care of that with 2 braided ground straps, just to be safe.
Can anyone offer any more advice on how to take care of this problem? It makes replacing the A/C compressor seem easy (just did that one, too!)
Thanks, all!
John
