adrimirko

hi everyone a couple days ago my Acura just died on the highway, it was working perfect and all of a sudden radio off ,lights weak and died , battery was drained in 2 minutes not even possible to crank, so next day I jumped battery got the car running , made a couple of readings with multi meter numbers look good but as soon as I put some load like lights , radio reading goes under 12 volts , tomorrow I will try some basics like cleaning connections checking grounds ,volt drop , but if nothing changes I will replace alternator , but I have seen in the market some high output alternators like 130-160 amp .My question is are these better than a regular 80-90 amp if yes ,do I need to get an external volt regulator or install inline fuse considering is a higher output, or the volt regulator with the alternator is enough, thank you in advance for any help or advice

B_Swapped93

Those high output ones are from the car audio days, a normal one will be just fine so long as it functions as it should. Just stick to a OEM/OE replacement, although it's not uncommon to get a complete dud from a oe-replacemeant aka part store one. it does sound like your alternator tho, by car audio days I mean like 3 TV's in the dash....thank God I was still in grade 2 when that was a thing lol.

tamboo

the brushes last about 160k, i replaced those a year ago and it's still going strong.

1995 ACURA INTEGRA Alternator / Generator Brush

adrimirko

Thank you for the tip I like the idea ,just to make sure those brushes are inside the alternator correct, and how many do I need per alternator

tamboo

you just need the one unit with 2 brushes.
there's a cover you pop off the alt after removing a few screws/bolts.
then remove the 2 bolts holding the unit in and slide it off the shaft.
use fishing line or ziptie to hold down the new brushes and cut it off after install.


if the regulator's toast just get a new denso alt since the price is the same at rockauto for some odd reason.

adrimirko

well after a couple of weeks I was able to do something to my car , I got a new battery , cleaned connections , and started perfect I was checking volts reading all the time and it was perfect 14 volts , since the 2 times it died on the highway was after 20 min running with lights on and radio I did try the same , kept it running with lights and radio on after 25 min voltage started to drop , so no longer alternator charging just battery volts and after 11 volts I shut it down , so my question is ,changing the alternator is the solution , does anybody know why this is happening thank you

hondalocal

A bad battery can cause premature failure of the alternator and visa versa.

If the battery is not taking a charge it will over-stress the alternator which will cause it to fail. Likewise if the alternator begins to fail it will not charge the battery and cause that to fail.

If you battery is not that old you could have something draining electricity when the car is shut off, which would cause it to fail as well.