949

hey guys my 2001 v6 accord voltage is going up and down.

I have a volt meter hooked up because I noticed that when im at a stop light my stereo would get a little quieter. when shift into neutral "N" on the shifter the radio music would get louder again.

of course I know that by shifting it, the idle is able to get a little higher therefore the alternator will charge a little better.

what I noticed also,during driving the volt meter, would go up and down depending on rpm and speed.
for instance what I would see;
acceleration around 14.x volts.
cruising around 14.x volts.
when I apply the brakes and stop at a light 12.3-12.6 volts.
when I shift into Neutral it goes back to 13.x-14.x volts.

also I noticed that the battery will be around 12.1 volts in the morning.

I wanted to see what everyone thinks it could be or have any experience with this similar issue.

my first thought was to just change out the battery as I have a known good one on another car.
so I did and the voltage characteristics are still the same. except that the driving experience is little bit normal in the begging after I installed it that day.
my thought here is that it might be the alternator going bad and not fully charging the battery everything, which I know would damage a perfectly good battery prematurely.

so far my conclusion is that it could be the alternator. its the original alternator that came when I bought the car new.

...but I also read that the ELD might be bad, which might be a long shot tho.
do these cars even have an ELD?
or a voltage regulator?? how do I even test a voltage regulator?


before I dump money or time removing the alternator, is it something else??
or for sure its the alternator starting to go bad??

FurryBalls

To test the VR on the car, you have done what I would have done already. Do you get any spikes beyond 14.5 volts? If tyhe regulator is shot, this would be something that could happen.

I'd check also alternator brushes, if those are serviceable. It might be cheaper for you to replace the entire thing, though. Down here (Argentina) a used alternator for this kinda car would go for around 200dls (1750 pesos). Not precisely cheap. Also! Check the alternator's pulley for play and tension on the belt. When you rev up the car, from low RPMs under load, do you get any screeching sounds? If so, I'd check first the pulleys and belt. Hope this helps.

HondaAccordKen

If the ELD is the problem, this mod could help,

http://www.hondaaccordforum.com/foru...-bypass-32726/

http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/boa...ivicaccordfit/

949

I took the car out today and was paying a little more attention to the volt meter.

so here is the revised info.

im actually driving the car on the street while this is happening and not parked.

accelerating - 14.8 v

cruising - 12.4-14.8 it changed a lot today for some reason. I didn't do anything to it yet. nothing has been touched since I put in the different battery.
it now stays more in the 12.x range of the scale today.

stopping at the light - 12.4 - 12.6



I have been reading more about the ELD problem and the symptoms seems to fall into both category, eld and alt issues.
there must be a degree of difference somewhere??? so I can tell.
I cant afford to drop money on both. I can do a brand new alt but if that's not the issue them im screwed.

things I have found out by searching.
I can take the alt out to test at autozone but it might not be conclusive. the test might show good but it might still be a bad alt.
there is no service bulletin for the ELD for my year and model. there is a s.b. for other years and other models of Honda.

so with that I am only leaning towards a bad alt as the first issue and the eld as a second.

I wish I knew from someone who has a good known working alt to check their volt as they drive. whats the max and min while they cruise, accel, and stop at lights. it would help me know to know what the issue with mine is. as I think 14.8 is really high but some have said it isn't?
so I don't know for sure.

FurryBalls

It's certainly not ideal, but not extremelly high. I'd still look into the alternator. My quick & dirty method to test it is to unplug the battery while the car runs. If it stalls and dies, then the alternator is not putting in enough juice to keep the engine running. I dont recommend my method, I just say, it works for me.

949

oh yeah that was something I have heard to try in the past.
I did read that would not be an ideal test method as online articles have said that.
they say the method would destroy/fry out onboard electrical components. the battery is supposedly a buffer for the alternator. if I was to do it, the alternator output to all the electrical components would get a 100% jolt of power.


I just read that if the battery is getting 14.7+ volts, then its going to start to boil inside and the chemical will start to gas.
this might be the reason why the first battery that was in it was slightly damaged.
I have a really good charger from optima that I used to charged the second battery I installed and it was at 3amps when fully charged.
the battery I removed from the accord only fully charged at 2amps. not good....
so I need to fix this daily driven car before another good optima battery is eating it. time is not on my side.

I need to understand exactly what the alternator vs the eld does.

ELD if broken:
does it allow the volts to jump up high?
does it allow the volts to drop low?

alternator if broken:
does it allow the volts to jump up high?
does it allow the volts to drop low?


these are the main characteristics I have noticed that will determine which part is broken if I knew which part does this.

Lost Again

I'm with the alt.....if you are only getting 12.x volts at idle.......something is wrong. Have it tested, if bad you will have to decide to either repair yourself or get a reman unit.

949

ok I did look into the mod on the eld from that site.

to test the system with this mod, I inserted a resistor and it kept the volts at 13.8-14.3. the method worked.


according to the other site, the high and low fluctuation is a normal thing that happens.
the down side they say is it will damage a good car battery over time. which it seems to be doing with my case.

with the resistor component in the system it does stabilize the volts a lot more. keeping it a range where we like.
so ill be getting a different resistor to keep the alt volts at 14.2-14.7.
14.8 level is where it can damage the battery.

holmesnmanny

The Honda charging system has two modes....low output and high output....depending on engine temperature, speed, among other things.

Sounds like your car is operating within specs.

You can use this site as a guide.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/view...20eld%20edu%22

949

thanks for the link. seems like a good like.
if the car is working in spec, it is damaging the battery over time.
I would prefer to bypass the eld and keep the voltage up.
the driving experience is better, the accessories in the car works better, over all experience if better.
to save a little bit of mpg just isn't worth it for me, which isn't that much.

holmesnmanny

It's not damaging the battery. This is normal operation for any honda from the late 80's on even until now.