Ok, I was driving home and I heard a crackling sound in my speakers which drowned out the music. I noticed it seemed to only happen when I rev it up. I stopped to look under the hood, and my battery is bulged out and puking acid all over the firewall.

I hook a battery tester up and find that it pegs it at over 14/15 volts.. I just replaced the alternator about 2 months ago because the voltage regulator was bad, so I'm wondering why it seems to be overcharging now.

Is there anything other than the alternator that could cause an overcharging condition?

 

May not be related, but the engine seemed to be overheating a bit while this was happening.

 

Looks like the alternator is overcharing again... replace it along with the battery and recheck charging voltage.

 

Could be the alternator but also how hot has it been around your area? This is typical in area's like Vegas/Az/Texas 100+ degree weather areas.

 

The weather has actually been cooler than normal around here. I'm thinking something else has gotta be wrong if I need another alternator after just replacing it.

 

Another weird thing is that none of my fuses blew...

 

Has anyone tried putting a secondary voltage regulator inline to limit voltage? The alternator seems to be producing plenty of juice, and is almost brand new.

 

Update: I'm seeing 18v during idle measured at the battery. Anyone got info for a secondary voltage regulator I can use?

I don't really feel like ripping out my alternator again.

thanks

 

Most service manuals have you remove the axle to get the alternator out the bottom... that SUX!

I removed my steering fluid line, the strut tie bar, a few wires, and the upper alternator bracket... and the alternator could then be squeezed out the top. Took about 3 hours total.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hondapwr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Update: I'm seeing 18v during idle measured at the battery. Anyone got info for a secondary voltage regulator I can use?

I don't really feel like ripping out my alternator again.

thanks</TD></TR></TABLE>

Just replace the alternator... save yourself the headache... besides I don't think you can use an external regulator with the honda alternator which has a built-in regulator.

 

Yea, it's done. I bought the alternator from Advance Auto 4 months ago, so the replacement was free at least. The ELD circuit would have made a secondary reg tricky at best.