real time help on side of road now

[Three Wheel Ben]

Sorry, just saw this post.

Fastest way to field test an alternator. key on everything plugged in, pulley should be magnetized (use a small wrench or the like to check).

Unplug connector on back of alternator (key still on) check voltage at 3 wires and check voltage at the main power wire to alternator. They should all be close to battery voltage.

If they are not as listed above then start tracing the appropriate wire to its fuse/relay.

If you have a volt meter you can check the voltage drop between main alternator terminal and battery +. Should be no more than .3v. If above post is the issue then voltage drop will be much higher. Couple of eyelets and heavy gauge wire should fix that.

PMd # if I can help call.

Getting on a plane @ 9:30 this morning.

Good Luck.

Look on the bright side, at lease your not at the top of gold bar rim trying to do this.

 

[Corbet]

good morning cruise moab 09 in your best robin williams voice

rained all night and we are just getting moving. probably do denny's for breakfast.

Got a call from someone in Hawaii last night. I'll try him around noon if we are not fixed before then. don't want to wake him up.

As JT said we left off last night with high voltage 17.86 at the alt main terminal. battery voltage 12.10 at the battery terminals. then the rain came. so I think the problem lies between the two.

But I still don't understand why the starting is intermitant? It will not start now. (no cel when ignation switch turned on). this will make traking voltage drop difficult

 

[leiniesred]

EFI relay?

 

[Corbet]

efi relay tested out in friends truck.

pulley is magnetic

all three pins of alt connector have voltage with a little drop .3-.4 volts

Are you saying to bypass oem system by running heavy wire from main alt post to + battery terminal. any chance of damaging other systems by doing this?

 

[Corbet]

CDAN may have it...

via TrickyT:

Quote:
Originally Posted by TrickyT
I looked over the 1997 EWD FSM and many if not all of the symptoms described by beno (post #34) and others can be explained due to a intermittent connection between the two white wires running to terminal "B" on the alternator. Look at page 52 - Power Source - in the EWD manual. +12v runs from the main fusible link on the battery through a couple of splice junctions to the alternator, then from the alternator through another connector to several fuses on the fuse block in the passenger compartment. If there was a bad connection between the two wires at the lug on the alternator, power might not be reliably reaching the fuse block. This would affect the ECU, headlights (because there's no power to the headlight auto off "retainer" circuit), shift lock (because there's no power to the stop light switch), and dash illumination (because there's no power to the tail light relay). This theory is easy to test. Next time the headlights (and, by association, engine) fail, move the headlight switch to the "flash" position (pull the lever towards you). This bypasses the headlight retainer relay. If the headlights light up, then power is reaching the headlight relay but not the rest of the circuits "downstream" of that, which includes that part of the fuse block powered by the "main" fusible link. If this is the case, then there has to be a break between splice E7 in the engine compartment and the fuse block, and the most likely candidate is the inherent splice on the terminal lug at the alternator.




Brilliant!

That really makes huge sense and puts a nice bow on the whole thing.

Update:

I followed TrickyT's advice and looked at the wires between the alternator and the fuse box. All the wires in that loom look like they had faced some extreme temperatures. Very brittle and charred. My guess is the corrosion happened after the charring. Here are the pictures:

By trapper50cal, shot with KODAK Z650 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2009-05-03

By trapper50cal, shot with KODAK Z650 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2009-05-03

By trapper50cal, shot with KODAK Z650 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2009-05-03


I am going to make a trip to NAPA and see what they have for crimp eyelets, and probably Radio Shack for the wire.

testing headlight high beam flash (pull back) sometime works sometimes not but twisting lights into stardard on definitely does not.

 

[Corbet]

update

I'm currently idling here in camp with no dash warning lights or cel. voltage at battery is showing 13.86 volts. 14.06 volts at the main alt post.

the crimp on the mail alt connector is pretty torn up. I recrimped it a little. JT should post a pic up soon. But I think I'm cured. Will stop at parts store for some additional band aid parts but I probably try to roll on back to Durango as is. Then dissassemble completely for a proper repair.

 

[nakman]

Great news, Corbet! hope today's drive is uneventful.

 

[Trapper50cal]

TJ? really? after all we've been through?

Just kidding

Here is a pic and update he wanted posted

By trapper50cal at 2009-05-04

Here is what Corbet thinks is the issue, looks a lot like the thread Cdan refered to and what TrickyT thought was the issue....

Corbet wanted me to post this pix and ask if people agreed that it was the culprit.

After he cleaned it off and re-installed, the discharge light went off but it wouldn't idle in Park and at stop lights, but after a while of running it has begun to idle. I suspect the wire below the connection is like the TrickyT photos and is suspect as well....

What do you all think?

 

[Red_Chili]

Jeepers this seems to be the year for toasted wiring. The pix look all too familiar.

My harness is still holding well and no codes. Hope the same for you, Corbet!

 

[BLACKGOLD]

After he cleaned it off and re-installed, the discharge light went off but it wouldn't idle in Park and at stop lights, but after a while of running it has begun to idle. I suspect the wire below the connection is like the TrickyT photos and is suspect as well....

What do you all think?

I'm no mechanic, but my 80 has done this before...post electrical/sensor issues being resolved. I seem to recall being told that the Computer has to "re-learn" the engine if things have been unplugged/reset/etc, thus the idle will be off for a while, but it will return to normal after a bit of driving.

 

[powderpig]

93-94 with the OBD I computers will do this. They need to relearn the proper idle. What some time helps is to warm up the truck. then pull the fuse again, install fuse, start the truck and raise the idle to over 2k for 5 or more minutes. This should help.
If not the other way is to turn off the engine and on several times until the idle comes up to specs.

 

[Trapper50cal]

That's what I figured as well

He asked that I post that he is on the road and headed back to Durango

and he Thanks everyone for their assistance!

 

[Corbet]

I'm home and all is well. I'll have to fix it proper sometime this week.

Thanks to all who helped me with this. Especially JT and Tim.

And sorry JT guess my micro phone keyboard got the best of my typing abilities. Obviously I was not proof reading my posts.

 

[DaveInDenver]

After he cleaned it off and re-installed, the discharge light went off but it wouldn't idle in Park and at stop lights, but after a while of running it has begun to idle. I suspect the wire below the connection is like the TrickyT photos and is suspect as well....

What do you all think?

I think it's just things resetting. My truck did this a week or two ago after I left my lights on all day (round about 10 hours, the voltage meter didn't jump off the left stop!). The battery was f-l-a-t as could be, completely dead. It idled poorly for a day or two, which seemed to be a combination of the ECU being flushed and the alternator heavily loading the engine as the battery charged. The idle dropped to under 500 RPM and it seemed to be struggling to run at all, but after about 2 days it was back to it's normal level of idle weirdness.

 

[rover67]

Corbet, sorry we couldn't help.. I saw this post this afternoon

 

[corsair23]

Sorry to hear about the troubles Corbet but glad you made it home safe!! Awesome help from everyone that stepped up