Busted Alternator?? Lights/radio flicker

[papa smurf]

Hey Guys,

Bought an 84 6 months ago and it has been running great until now. Here's the symptoms:

2 weeks ago I left the lights on and the battery died. Had it recharged at Autozone and it kept running.

Yesterday i went to start 'er up and again the battery was dead. Not my fault this time. Jumped it and drove it to work just fine. When I got out of work it wouldn't start again.

We jumped it, threw some water in the battery, cleaned the connections and I headed home. On the way home the lights were flickering and the aftermarket radio was turning on and off. when parked the tach was going a little haywire and the lights went way dim. When I step on the gas the lights pick up again until the revs go down.

Any ideas? I plan on throwing the ohm meter on the alternator and testing the battery today. I just want to know if it could be anything else before I swap out the alternator (looks fairly new.)

[Highlander]

Without any trouble shooting having been done- just a WAG here, it sounds like one of the diodes is shorted closed and leaking current the wrong way. I could be wrong- ask anyone, I'm wrong more than right..
If you need brushes, go to a NAPA store- They're $5 plus change, and with a large soldering iron, the whole process of R & R and changing them takes about an hour- Just did it last week to the wife's.

[tercel4wdrules]

We accidentally left the lights on when I first got the '84. The battery was dead the next morning. I had it recharged and I put it back on and it was fine for a few days and then it was dead again. I just replaced the battery and that solved the problem.

[Petros]

It sounds to me the battery is shot, it will not hold a charge and you are running off the alternator when it is running. Many of the modern batteries will not tolerate being fully discharged. The last two that I did that with had to be replaced (under warranty fortunately since they were nearly new). For some reason when you fully discharge them it seems to burn out a cell when you recharge it again. Not always, but often.

AutoZone will test both the alternator and batt for free (most will anyway). Just putting a volt meter on the batt will tell you a lot: with the engine off check batt charge, it should show 12.5-13.2 volts. Than start the car, with it at high RPM, it should show 14+ volts. A fully charged battery is 13.2 volts (2.2 v per cell x 6 cells= 13.2v), it recharges at higher than 13 volts.

Good luck.

[ARCHINSTL]

Exactly the same thing happened to me last November. I tested the alternator and results were as Petros mentioned. The (recharged) battery lasted just two more starts. The old battery was only 3 1/2 years old - from Sleaze-Mart (Wal-Mart), but purchased by the P.O. - NOT me!
Tom M.

[keith]

I gotta agree with everyone else here, you have a battery with a shorted cell. It will take out the alternator if you don't replace the battery asap. In the meantime, do NOT rev the engine very high, this will overload the alternator and let the smoke out of the diodes.

[papa smurf]

UPDATE:

Thanks for the help guys.

I replaced the battery and the car started running fine. But occasionally the battery light and brake light would flicker on and off. This lasted about a week, then after leaving the car for 10 minutes it wouldn't start up.

I was going to replace the alternator but then noticed the tick that accompanied the flickering. It was coming from the Voltage Regulator.

Replaced that and it's running like a dream. A shaky, rusty, ghetto, underpowered, charismatically ugly dream.

I probably needed a new battery anyway. Voltage regulator cost $35. Alternator would've been $65 and not fixed the problem.

[svx92]

Sorry to dig up an oooollld thread. However I'm having similar issues. Car was starting just fine, however I was noticing that the battery and brake light would stay on for a little bit, then eventually go out. Well it progressed to staying on all the time and now the car has completely died. We took the battery to wal-mart to have it recharged for free. Nothing, car is still dead, even tried a new battery, which was fine but still nothing.

I'm leaning towards a dead alternator at this point. I'm unsure though if this is the problem. Seems to me that would be the case. Gonna get some jumper cables and try and jump the damn thing. However does it seem likely to be a alternator gone south?

The reason I've come to that conclusion is based on my old battery and new testing fine and the car still not showing any signs of life when reinstalled.

Thanks for any help or response. Hope to have the gold bruiser back on the road sooner rather than later.

[Petros]

Welcome to the list!

you need to be more specific as to what "dead" means. when you put in the new battery do the dash lights come on? will the car crank and not start, or only "click"? will start and run but the light does not go out?

Presuming your replacement battery is good, if there is no lights on the dash in run position, it means you have a bad contact somewhere.

Check the ground on both the battery and the engine, check both ends of the "plus" side batter cable. If there is corrosion clean it out good with wire brush and reinstall. You might consider just buying new terminals if they are old and corroded, they do not cost much. Also in the fuse box under the hood there is a large "main" fusible link, that can short or even corrode. check this fuse and test with a jumper wire (or warp with metal foil). Replace if necessary.

If there is a bad ground it might run but not fully charge the battery, so a bad contact could act like that. If you get it to run test the voltage both engine off, and engine running, across the battery, that will tell you if it is charging.

Good luck.

[svx92]

Sorry, to be more specific, dead as in no dash lights, no clicking, no sign that starter is working/alternator/or battery. Basically I came to the conclusion that the alternator gave up the ghost. I'll check around on the connections, but as far as that goes I didn't notice anything that was outright damaged or any worse for repair than anything else in the engine bay.

In any event I'm going to at least have the alternator tested. But I will definitely consider the possiblity of a bad ground. But if that was the case, for example if you crossed the cables for the battery, would a bad ground still allow enough contact for your battery terminals to spark? I would assume if it *wasn't* grounding then it wouldn't give any power as it would be grounding out through other means, such as the throttle cable, etc.

Thanks for the fast response and I'll be sure to check the above mentioned things.

[dlb]

i don't think your alternator is causing the car not to start. the alternator produces electricity to recharge your battery while you drive so if it dies, you battery will slowly die as you drain it of power. put in a new battery and the car should run fine until it drains that battery too, at least an hour or two if you don't use headlights or radio. the fact your car slowly showed signs of an electrical failure finally gave up is typical of a dead alt, but now that your car shows no signs of life even with a new battery, means that something in the circuit has changed and is not allowing current to pass through. your alternator may wind up having a problem but it's not the reason the car is totally dead.

if you crossed the cables for the battery, would a bad ground still allow enough contact for your battery terminals to spark? I would assume if it *wasn't* grounding then it wouldn't give any power as it would be grounding out through other means, such as the throttle cable, etc.

i'm not sure what you mean here. cross the battery cables as in hook them up backwards, as in put the pos. cable on the neg. battery terminal and vice versa? if so, you don't want to do that. you'll short an in-line fuse. another member here did that recently, and that would cause your current problem. or do you mean cross them as in touch them to each other? there would be no spark then because the battery wouldn't be in the circuit. i'm probably just not understanding you. fill me in, man.

[svx92]

Nope you got it 100%, I hooked up the terminal posts backwards on accident and have a feeling I popped a good portion of my fuses too then. I'm going to replace those as I already have a new alternator anyways and see if it makes a difference.