Alternator Problems AGAIN

So, as some of you might know, the last alternator I purchased to replace the stocker was bad. I installed it and the next day my battery was dead. The concesus was that it was a bad alternator. that was, oh, well a month ago or so. Fast forward to yesterday. I finally got the replacement alternator in the mail after a few e mails and installed it yesterday afternoon. Now this SOME B%*#$% is doing the same darn thing. I went out there this morning and my battery voltage was at 4. I cannot figure out what the heck is going on. I reinstalled this one the same way the other one came off. The original stock alternator does not do this. The Jeep had sat for nearly a week without starting and fired right up yesterday.

What the heck is the deal????

I'm lost

High5

 

I'd take the alternator to your local Autozone (maybe not just Autozone, other stores likely have one too) and test it. My local store has a self-serve tester. May not tell you anything, but it's another data point - I'd test the original and the replacement to see if I got a different result.

Just a theory - is this a Delco in place of the Motorola? Have you tested to see if there is any current flowing to the battery when the alternator is in place? If the replacement were wired wrong, so that there was a drain on the battery, that could cause the symptoms you see.

 

Tim,

I was hoping you would reply to this. I'm at a loss. It says Delco remanyed on the back of the old alternator and I simply unplugged and plugged in. Can autozone or o'reilly's check to see if there is any current flowing back into the alternator??? This one says it was checked and tested, but do they test for a short???

How do I test to see if current is flowing??? Should it read 14 or so at the battery when it's charging??? If so, it is. I checked that yesterday.

thanks

 

Did you make ssure the battery was hot before you fired it up with a new alternator?

 

What do you mean, battery hot???

If you mean good, it's less than a month old Optima.

High5

 

as mentioned, check for a draw fom any other component.
the Delcos have a "diode trio" pack to prevent battery drain...not saying the replacement could have a bad set of diodes, but what are the odds ?

 

Well, I checked that.

With the multimeter between the battery and cable with everything plugged in, 3.5 amps. Unplug the plug, 0.01.

With my old alternator in, multimeter between battery and cable, 0.01. With it unplugged, 0.01.

So another bad alternator????

Another question, should I be using a larger wire between the alternator and solenoid???

Let me know what you guys think

High5

 

Try reversing the red and blue wire, The number 2 position is the exciter and this is how all 3 of mine are hooked up.

Hope this helps.

 

The #1 wire is the no charge indicator light and needs to be switched otherwise it will drain the battry.

 

So you think I have the wires crossed??? I just plugged them in how they came out. Why on Delco's would they have it one way and then on Powermasters would they have it the other??? I didn't see anything mentioned in the instructions.

Larry, do you have any pictures of your setup???

I'm willing to try anything at this point.

High5

 

Lets try something really primitive. Forget your multimeter for a second....With the alt installed...both batt cables hooked up...take the big power wire off of your alt and just touch it a few times to the post that it should be hooked to on the alt. Are there sparks? Because if it's your alt that is draining your batt...there WILL be sparks when you connect and disconnect it. If not...try the same thing with the other two. If still nothing, move on, it's something else.

 

With the powermasterd there are a few sparks. I noticed that and have heard about that. I will try the other wires at work.

If anyone has pics of this I would like to see them.

Thanks

High5

 

If I go home for lunch I will post a pic but I looked yesterday. My hook up is a 10 ga wire from the batt terminal on the alternator to the solenoid terminat that has the + battery cable attached. The #2 terminal has a jumper wire to the batt terminal. There is no wire from the #1 terminal.

 

So as I'm looking at the picture I posted, which is number 1 and which is two. As seen in the picture, the one wire is attached directly to the battery lead through the connector. The other wire is ran into the factory harness from there I have no clue where it goes. Larry, so you think I need to reverse the orientation of the wires???

I would appreciate a pic

High5

 

I don't know where you found that, but that helps a lot. At least now I know that the wires do need to be swapped.

But my question is, why is the orientation of the wires the opposite on the stocker???

High5