I bought an '85 Prelude almost 2 years ago and its ran fine untill about a month ago.

The battery lights been coming on lately and ever since then its been nothing but trouble. At first I thought it was the alternator, took it off and had it tested twice. Passed both times on two different machines. Next I thought it was the actual battery so I bought a new one and tried it. The car ran, but the light hasn't gone away and it lets me drive for about 30 minutes and then shuts off. Anyone have any suggestions?

Just noticed theres a slight "tick" every couple of seconds. The light flickers a little when it ticks I dunno if that has anything to do with it but I thought i'd share.

 

Sounds to me like a bad chassis ground or other important ground. it could be on the power side but more likely on the ground side. check both negative battery cables at each end. corrosion will cause poor current flow and if i'm correct then you are hearing relays clicking, indicating high resistance. make sure the battery terminals and posts aren't corroded. good luck

 

Check both cables, cleaned them both and i'm still having the problem. Could it be the wires going to the alternator? I've noticed theres two wires going into it, one of them has silicone around it, could that be preventing poor current flow? Could those wires just need to be replaced?

 

Those are good wires to check and would have the same affect as what I said before. what you really need to do is voltage drop tests across the cables but if you can see that any of them are in bad condition then they need to be replaced.

 

It has to the alternator, I tried a little trick my friend tought me were you start the car and dissconnect the negative battery wire. Usually the car is supposed to run off the alternator but mine died. I have a feeling no matter what kragens says its the alternator, I just dont wanna fork over the $60

 

id go to a scrap grab those wires going to your alternator...
then try it out..
but do the battery trick too car should be able to hold its own without you running too many accessories at once..
id get an actual avr test tho.. rather then just bench testing an aleternator