Car is not charging and is dying on me.

[SS_Sean]

Okay, installed razors alky today and the install went very smoothly. I actually spend more time cleaning up the previous owners messes. I got everything hooked it, did the tests to make sure the lights were working, etc., etc. Drove over to Napa auto parts to get a new flasher relay for my turn signals and the car died in the parking lot when I was getting ready to take off. I thought, no big deal. I had the door open all day and the battery is low. I got a jump from the guys. I then drove the car over to Rhodda paint to get some denatured alcohol for the alky tank. As I was driving over to the Rhodda I noticed the heater controls were making a clicking noise, and a squeal (I've got the pushbutton style controls). I pulled into the parking lot and the car died. I got a jump again and noted the scanmaster said battery was at 8.8 volts with the car running. I also saw the scanmaster indicating the car was going to 13.4 degrees retard, back to 0, 13.4 degrees retard and back to 0 over and over. I limped the car home and I've got it hooked on the battery charger.

I do not believe I have ANYTHING improperly grounded on this alky control install. I will double check everything, but can you guys think of anything it could be???

Heck, I don't know, maybe the alternator is going out and it's not charging the battery, but what about the timing retard? The only time I've ever seen it do that was when my crank sensor was going out and it would do that retard-zero, retard-zero thing....

 

[BlackMetal]

I'd go with what Razor told you in the other forum... it could be related to the instrument cluster/charge lamp.

 

[SloGN]

always check the volt lamp to see if it's burning with the engine off and the key on. If not check/replace the bulb. if the bulb still don't light up unplug the small wire on the alt and aplly a gorung to that wire then check to see if the bulb is burning. if it is burning the alt is bad. One last thing to check is since you were doing some wire check to make sure all the fuses in the fuse block and pushed in all the way. I had a gauges fuse come loose and cause the alt not to charge.


HTH

Pat Broughton

 

[SS_Sean]

I charged the battery overnite and don't seem to be having any of the problems I did yesterday. Weird. Everything works okay. I guess having the doors open all day, with me doing my alkycontrol install, really, really drained the battery and it was too much for the alternator to handle. All is well today. Time to turn up the boost!!

 

[David65]

Out of curiosity, can you see a couple volts difference on the scanmaster between when the engines running and when it's off?

 

[Dewey]

Yes. Mine will read around 12.3 not running and about 14.2 running.

 

[novaderrik]

i chased the very same problem on my T a few years back.
tried a known good alternator that i had on the shelf, and no charging. swapped in a good CS120 alternator i had laying there- still no charge.
when i noticed that the Volt light wasn't coming on with the key on/engine off, i decided to replace the bulb. the bulb was good- but in the process of getting into the dash to replace the bulb (when i had the key on so i could shift it out of park to get room to get the cluster bezel out), i noticed the Volt light come on when i wiggled the cluster.
it was just a bad connection where the cluster plugs into the dash. i took the cluster out, cleaned all the terminals with rubbing alcohol on a q tip, and bent all the tabs up a little bit to get a tighter connection.
3 years later, and still no problems with the charging system.

 

[SS_Sean]

Out of curiosity, can you see a couple volts difference on the scanmaster between when the engines running and when it's off?

When I got home the other night the scanmaster was reading 8.4 or so with the engine on. I shut the engine off and read volage directly off battery and it displayed 10.4...apples and oranges, I know. :redface: