can anyone confirm that what someone told me is correct?

i was told that if i disconnected my negative battery cable while the car was running, and it did'nt die, that it means my alternator is all good, .......(assuming my battery and battery cables are good)

the reason i ask is that i think my alternator is good only cause of this little test, but if its wrong i need to take the alt out and get it tested at autozone, if anyone knows if this little test works or not it would help, thanks

 

Damn you dont live to far from me, you live in carrolton, i got my first zc from a place called vsv sure you heard of them there in carrolton, but anyway autozone can get a pretty good test on your alternater while its still in the car.

 

Don't disconnect. Take it to Autozone, they can test the alternator and battery while it's in your car, takes lke 2 minutes and it's free.

 

Yep. Follow the previous advice. Get it tested. It's risky to disconnect the battery on a running engine. You could introduce a voltage spike that could fry $ensitive electronic component$.

 

Hook up a volt meter to the battery to see if your putting out at least 13.6 to 14.6. if so alt is good. Also, load test the battery to see if it is good. if it drops below 9 volts i would junk it.

 

thats funny, i am sitting questioning something i was pretty sure was right.

you see, i thought you can get the alternator while it is in the car, but when i went over to get that done, the sleepy guy behind the counter told me they can't test it unless the alternator is out of the car, lol

i guess i should'nt believe anyone just cause they work at an auto parts store.

ok, well at least i know that he was wrong, and i will drop by there on the way back from work, thanks

 

exactly what he said. hook up the voltmeter to the battery,
engine off the battery should read around 12.45 volts..
engine on should read around 14.4 and if it goes lower than whatever the reading was before you started it, the alternator is ****.

Good luck

 

ok, i posted this thread at work, now i am replying after getting home,................ while leaving work, my car started fine, and when i was about 3/4 the way home, my stupid battery light came on again, but just flickering, so i stopped at O'Reillies auto parts store to get the alternator checked while in the car, and first thing the guy noticed was that the battery was way too low to even check the alternator.

but i know the battery is good cause autozone just tested, but anyway the guy at O'reilies tested it again just to make sure, and it tested good.
so, since we knew the battery was good, he was able to test the alternator, and he hooked some little voltmeter looking thing up to only the battery (not touching the alternator at all), then he said "your alternator is fine, its at 13.8".

so, i now know that my alternator and battery are good, so now i am totally confused as to why i still have the symptoms of a bad alt every now and then, and i need to figure this out before having it die on me again.
i am hoping that the guy at the O'Reillies was right when he said the alt was good, otherwise he got me pointed in a different direction for nothing.

all i can think of is to replace my other battery cable, (the pos), and then see what happens, and i checked no.14 fuse and its good, and the connections are tight on the alternator, so maybe i have a short in my system that drains the battery or maybe i have a missing ground or something, but not sure.

any thoughts?


[Modified by crxaddikt, 9:08 PM 12/16/2002]


[Modified by crxaddikt, 9:08 PM 12/16/2002]

 

check to make sure the main power lead from the alternator is bolted down tight. it has a little ring on the end of it that goes over a diode (post thingy) on the alternator. my car had major issues 'cause this was loose.

oh, btw... i disconnected both the positive and negative lead from the battery in my wife's EF while it was running and the car stayed running just fine, which meant my alternator was ok. didn't fry anything.


[Modified by YumVTEC, 3:18 AM 12/17/2002]

 

yumvtec- you got lucky....guys you should seriously never ever do that...witht eh battery cables.....If you want I can explain but common sense should help me out here with helping you out.

crxaddikt.......Ive explained this before....its obvouis you have a bad ground sssoommmwhere....do you have a manual? get one if you dont and it says where all the grounds are in the engine....now I dont mean just go find them and tighten them down....inspect every ground.....GFS better known as green fuzzy **** will form inside the wires and between the terminals causing a bad connnection...that will disturb the powerflow of the car


the reason it doesnt do it all the time is because at idle your car isnt moving...but you start driving your car shifts....and so does the motor...alot mor ethen you think and this is enough to increase resistance in each ground wire....

Is your battery tied down btw?

 

my battery is secured pretty good, and about the grounds, i have the helms shop manual downloaded from the resource, but i don't see anything on there that shows a good picture of all the main grounds.

one thing i forgot to mention, which might have something to do with it, is that i had a wreck in sept2001, in the front end, and had the frame pulled in the front, and i was almost thinking that could of maybe loosened a ground.

my first thing i need to do is replace the other battery cable, cause i only replaced the negative, but now i realise that the positive is'nt holding tightly, so i will replace that, and i will check the grounds, (but i don't know where all of them are), and basically try any thing i can, ..........just as long as i can avoid taking it in to a shop, which i really don't want to do.

i looked at the alternator from the top with a flashlight, and i couldnt find the alternator "ground", which somebody talked about earlier?

i don't know if i should take the risk of taking my car to work tomorrow or not, i might get a ride just to be safe, but meanwhile i need to make sure this is solved before having to get towed again

 

maybe i just need one of them hyperground kits, a high amp alt, and a optimo gel battery, lol

 

Check the connections inside the underhood fuse box. The alternator output wire, as described in a previous reply, runs right into it and is held down by a phillips head screw. The other connection feeds the battery for a recharge.

The not too tight positive cable connection would cause problems. Besides the actual post connection, where the cable transitions from the wire to the clamp can have a poor connection also. The green fuzz builds up inside the clamp and inhibits conduction. You already replaced the negative cable, so you can rule out that one as being a problem.

Stupid question... but is the alternator belt tight and not slipping???


[Modified by Perfectionist, 8:37 PM 12/17/2002]

 

you could be shorting out from your battery to your starter my crx was doing the same thing I found a torn up wire at the starter.Check it out.

 

i looked in the underhood fuse box, but i was only looking for blown fuses, but i did'nt check how tight the phillips screw connections were, but i will do that today, and i still need to check the end that connects to the alternator, cause i only checked the wire harness only so far.

and as far as the alt belt, it felt tight when i wiggled it, and as far as slipping, i don't really know how to tell if it is or not, but it looked fine when it was turning.

 

ok, i will check the starter wires also, thanks

 

well for the disconnect the battery after the car is running problem... I ran my car like that for a month before I got an extra battery and I stopped barrowing my bros from his car. NOTHING HAPPEND... maybe I was extremly lucky. Friends do it all the time and I haven't heard anything bad happening ever.

Just thought I would ad that in, if anyone had a bad experience, let us know about it, but if not, I wouldn't tell someone not to do it if the person never did it themselves and is only going of theory. This is not a flame.


[Modified by technine, 11:40 PM 12/17/2002]

 

I went through a big electrical problem with my car when I first got it. Basically went through the whole system. Replaced alternator,battery,starter,main relay, cap and rotor and last but not least grounded the battery to the motor. Check to see if you have a good ground from your battery to your motor if not I suggest getting a ground wire from your local auto parts store attach one to your negative battery terminal and one to your tranny there should be a nice bolt that you can get to easily and stick it under. Dont waste your money on expensive ground kits not worth your money. A cable will only cost you 7-8 bucks and about 5 mins of your time. Not sure if this is your problem but if you are unsure of a good ground this is a simple thing to do and doesnt hurt.

 

I had the same battery light flickering problem and it turned out to be my alt was faulty. It still charged the battery but the regulator was messed up. So at certain time it wouldn't be charging to its full capacity which caused the alt light to come on and off. I was getting readings od 13.6 to 14.4 and then the day befroe I changed it it showed an 18 I changed it and I have had no problems at all. Another thing I noticed was sometimes after driving when I would go to turn the car back on the battery light would not come on as it normally would all these problems were fixed by changing the alternator. Oh mine had tested fine at autozone also.

 

illusive:

i replaced both battery cables, and the negative one goes from the battery post down and attaches at where clutch adjust **** is on the bracket.

then the postive cable attaches the little wire onto the underhood fuse box (phillips head screw thing), and the other end goes down to where it grounds by the lower left back part of the engine block.

so, are you telling me i can also add an additional ground cable? along with this?, just wanted to make sure i understood you correctly, cause if so, then i would add any more grounds i can, as long as it helps.

 

excitid:

i think you just kind of made me rethink my problem, cause at first i thought it was the alternator, but when the guy tested it at autozone and showed 13.8, then i assumed it was good, but when you think of it, i had alternator symptoms not too long before having it test good, so i have a feeling now that i should just replace the alternator, especially since i heard other people say their alt tested good, but was still bad.

i might replace it today, my car has 150k miles on it, and i never replaced one, and i was'nt aware that the first owner ever replaced it either, so that, plus the fact that i have two rockford fosgate amps, makes me think i should just go ahead and put a new one in, hoping it solves the problem.

thanks for all the tips and replies, i just refuse to take it to some shop, i rather fix it myself with the help of this forum.

 

Hope it's not too late, but when you buy the rebuilt alternator, they sometimes offer a life-time warranty for an extra couple of bucks. Get it. You may go through one or two rebuilts before you get one that the bearings don't start to growl on in a week or two.

 

You're right. Nothing may happen. It's just not a good idea.
A stupid analogy would be if you went around and had unprotected casual sex with complete strangers. Would you get AIDS? Maybe not. But it only takes once.

BTW, some relay circuits employ a diode to prevent current spikes. If the manufacturer thought it was important enough to use them in that application, you can imagine the potential damage disconnecting a battery could do.

 

did you clean off where it contacts the metal? if you didnt, then try it, it doesn't cost anything to do, just take off the wire, clean the terminal off with sandpaper and clean where it contacts the metal so its nice and shiny.
also, you may want to take it to another autoparts store, just so that u can get it tested again and have 2 people say that its good, if you have time that is