Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting This sucks!

quickest way to test the alternator without any equipment....start the car and pull off the negative battery cable. If the car dies it's the alt, or something associated with it. If the car runs then it's indicative of a bad cell in that battery, or something battery related.

Good luck.

Thanks.

Just tried it and the car died instantly when i pulled the negative terminal off.

Does the car run now, after the pull test?

Ya, still starts up fine, and all accessories seem to work fine.

WEll since the wiring harness on these cars are garbage, My alternator kept popping ( 5 in 6 months . So what i did to fix the problem was:I ran 2 reds 1 black 8 gauge wires from the batt in the back straight to the alt. rebuilt the voltage regulator harness ( again these harnesses are garbage ) and now it charges great. the reason for this is: I have a stereo system installed, and with the battery in the back i have one lead from the batt. to the main fuse 300A then after the fuse i branch off to the system and to the front of the car to the accu sump i have installed which is a junction box, then to the alt or where ever it goes. TOO MUCH RESISTENCE problem solved

It might be your megafuse which is under the coil pack in the plastic assembly. megafuse is in box with red lead


Or: It's alternator time, Motorcraft if possible

Alternator how to

So when the forums went down...we lost some posts but basically what i did was check the megafuse...checked continuity accross those two ends, the multimeter said it was still continuos, then i checked resistance, was practically 0.

Then i decided to just pull the alternator and have it tested, when i had a it tested, it said it failed the "light circuit" test or something like that...basically they said it was dead.

So i got a new alternator...had it tested, it was fine.



Now today, i finished installing it, and fired the car up....the voltage still sits at 12.xx when the car is on???????

I dunno what the fugg to do?

When the alternator was out, i checked for continuity from the pos big wire at the alternator to the pos batt terminal, it was continous, then i put a lead on the ground terminal that connects to the battery (at the time it was not connected to the battery), and it was not continous.

This really does suck!

Anybody have any ideas?

Ground wire on the battery should have continuity to the engine block and alternator case, and body grounds too.

So i wanted to start with the pinpoint tests...so i started with this one:



And it failed the test...voltage was 0...so i guess that's where my problem is...something shorted to ground?

Now my question is...which circuit is 20? Is it one of the ones off of the 3 wire connector...the service cd is tough to work with sometimes...

I just hope i didn't kill this alternator as well when i tested out the car earlier...that would be not good.