Battery not getting full charge.
Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:37 pm
Up until last week the '93 started amazingly well. No real effort needed to hold the key in start, just turn it to start and it fires up quicker than the '01 does (not that the '01 hesitates to start either).
My brother drove it the 40 miles to school and he called me telling me the gauges were all bouncing/sweeping (as they do when the car is started except faster). It started with the tach and then all of them were bouncing, including the speedo he says. But he said the car drove fine with no issues. I figured it's another ground issue again, I may have missed something when I checked. But he calls me a while later because it won't start. But it tried to turn over and slowly died. So we figure alright so the 4 month alternator was a dud. It wasn't charging the battery back up. It was in the red according to the gauge, when it wasn't bouncing around. We've replaced the alternator twice now over the weekend and it's still not charging the battery all the way up to 14 anymore. After going through 3 alternators now, I think it's fairly safe to assume that it's not the alternator causing the issue at this point.
I hadn't even been in the car for a couple weeks until today (partly because it smells like he unloaded a cologne bottle in there, but that's a separate issue). But this morning Brennan told me it wouldn't start again, so he had to take the '01 to school (Parking Decals are on the Bonnevilles). So I went out and figured I'd give it a try before taking the truck. It was slow turning over but fired up, so I grabbed the jumper cables and went to work. The tach acted up twice on my way to work, and the volt meter only sometimes seemed to react with higher RPM. When I got to work I held the RPM up until the volt meter was at the 14 mark and shut her down. She fired right up immediately when I went to lunch.
I'd assume that when my dad and brother replaced an alternator (they each replaced one over the weekend), that at least one of them would have checked the cables. But what are you're ideas? TIA.
My brother drove it the 40 miles to school and he called me telling me the gauges were all bouncing/sweeping (as they do when the car is started except faster). It started with the tach and then all of them were bouncing, including the speedo he says. But he said the car drove fine with no issues. I figured it's another ground issue again, I may have missed something when I checked. But he calls me a while later because it won't start. But it tried to turn over and slowly died. So we figure alright so the 4 month alternator was a dud. It wasn't charging the battery back up. It was in the red according to the gauge, when it wasn't bouncing around. We've replaced the alternator twice now over the weekend and it's still not charging the battery all the way up to 14 anymore. After going through 3 alternators now, I think it's fairly safe to assume that it's not the alternator causing the issue at this point.
I hadn't even been in the car for a couple weeks until today (partly because it smells like he unloaded a cologne bottle in there, but that's a separate issue). But this morning Brennan told me it wouldn't start again, so he had to take the '01 to school (Parking Decals are on the Bonnevilles). So I went out and figured I'd give it a try before taking the truck. It was slow turning over but fired up, so I grabbed the jumper cables and went to work. The tach acted up twice on my way to work, and the volt meter only sometimes seemed to react with higher RPM. When I got to work I held the RPM up until the volt meter was at the 14 mark and shut her down. She fired right up immediately when I went to lunch.
I'd assume that when my dad and brother replaced an alternator (they each replaced one over the weekend), that at least one of them would have checked the cables. But what are you're ideas? TIA.
