this last friday i was driving to my buddys house from sd, (its like a 2 hour drive) when all of a sudden my radio turns off. it turns back on but it turns off every 10 seconds after that. then, the lights in my dash start dimming, the clock lights start dimming, the rpm's needle drops to 0 while im driving at 70mph. i have a 91 crx si with a d16z6 from a 93 civic ex. after a few minutes, all the lights turn off and the car starts bogging out, a few seconds after that, the car dies while im rollin on the freeway... i got my friend to give me a jump start and everything seems like its goin alrite for the next 20 mins, then it starts doin it all over again.

i had a 5 month old battery and alternator on the car and the engine swap was done about 6 months ago. this is the first time that my car does anything like this. so anyways, the car wont hold a charge. on saturday i take the battery to autozone and it checks good. i put the battery back on and turned on my car, then disconnected the battery and the car kept running. i let it run like that for a few minutes then i connected the battery. i let the car run for about 20 mins, drove it for like 10 mins and everything seemed to check good.

now today, sunday, im driving back to sd and the car does it again. first the radio turns off, i turned on my headlights and the rpm needle drops to 0 then jumps back up. then i turn on the high beams and the rpm needle jumps up a few lines then drops back down. the clock light starts dimming again, and eventually the car dies. i was able to get to another autozone and they checked the battery. they said it was low so they would charge it up for me. next we start thinking that it could be the alternator, so i pulled it out. they ran it up and it checked good.

i ask the guy at autozone about the status of the battery and he says that its not charging for some reason. so i get a brand new battery. so now with a brand new battery and a known good alternator, and i made sure the alternator was installed correctly, my car does it again!!!

i looked at all the wiring possible and everything looked ok. nothing chaffed or frayed, nothing melted...what else could it be???

 

any ideas??

 

i would go ahead and check the voltage that the alternator is putting out. Sometimes auto zone employees are retarded. The same thing happened to my friend.

when running ur alternator powers everything and should have a source voltage of around 14.6 volts. Its true that ur alternator could still be working properly but the coil windings on the inside could be corroded and result in a loss of voltage. Anything below 14 volts from the alternator should be replaced. Try that and let me know.

 

Also alternators can blow just one diode and that will cause poor charging but it will still "work"

 

or the + terminal on the battery is touching the chassie or the black wire that comes from the + battery and connects to the fuse box in the engine bay might be loose or also touching another wire or ground...is your battery relocated? or loose?

 

i checked to see if the + terminal was touching anything and it wasnt. the battery is still in the engine bay and its not loose. i still gotta go thru and double check all the wiring to see if i can see any abnormalities...

 

Check the connections to your alternator, and drivebelt tension
Your drivebelt could be slipping or your alternator not hooked up

Ive had both happen and felt stupid both times

But it isn't always the little things

 

check the alternator plug if its cliped in and check the power wire that goes to the alt also check all your grounds