You see, the battery light started coming on. A bad alternator is the last thing I need right now. There is no bus where I live for five miles and I take my wife to work an hour away (two hour trip twice a day). We moved very far out just recently, spending every last red cent.
So before I bore you and have you X out of here, here is what happened exactly and what I did that seemed to work.
I turned the car on and the battery light was on. Strange, I thought, because I had tested the alternator not long ago and it was fine. It wouldn't charge the battery in park or neutral but it would go away anywhere from five seconds to five minutes of driving.
Until, for the first time, the light came on as I was driving. That's when I knew that there was a possibility the car can die on the road.
Luckily, I was pulling up to my parents' house where I could try to fix the car. Some numbers. I was monitoring the voltage of the battery during this whole time. I've tested it with the car on and off. With the car running and the alternator working, at one point it produced an astounding 14.80 volts - like a brand new alternator. Typically it was charging around 13.76 when there was flow. Contact.
Contact is the key word. The best conclusion I could come to is that the wire going from the alternator to the battery had corrosion somewhere, stopping flow. This whole time, my car never actually died. It would turn on, even if the voltage was reading 12.11 with the car on. I cleaned all of the corrosion from the parts I could. Really it was just all of the positive battery terminal pieces I could clean and they did, indeed, have corrosion as well as some damage that I fixed.
The light never came on again while driving. While I was there at a location where I could work on the car, I decided my best bet was bypassing the bad alternator wire by using my own wire.
Maybe she's not doing THAT bad inside.
I'm still not convinced the alternator is bad. The reason is because I've had it charge like brand new and I've also seen it charge like it's bad. But if it was bad, it would never charge more than whatever state of voltage production it was at. If it was only charging at 12.54 volts, it wouldn't charge at 13.60 randomly.
(Note: I am proofreading this the next day and the battery light came back on last night - a few days after the bypass - and will not go off even though the car starts and lights aren't dimming or anything. In these cars and most others, inside lights will start dimming when the alternator bites the dust. I am about to make an 80 mile round trip. I don't feel nervous, ofcourse not...)
What I did was loosen the nut holding the stock wire, wrapped the exposed part of the thick wire I was using (it has to be really thick) around the bolt part, and tightened the nut back down. It took patience and dexterity. Use a connector if you have problems.
I had made sure to lower the wire down from above to the alternator. I ran it along the top of the motor, away from ANY moving parts! Be careful because there's pulleys close.
I had excess wire so after I decided on the best path to run it, I cut the wire so it was just long enough to reach the positive battery terminal without being loose.
Next, I used one of the existing bolts that are part of the positive battery terminal to, again, press down on the exposed wire I used to connect the components. For safety, I had the negative battery terminal off doing all of this.
I can park her right outside of my home. These cars have been a trip.
At first, I thought it didn't work, but as I drove more, I noticed that the light, if it came on, would only come on as I first start the car and now goes away shortly after. Sometimes it stays on for two seconds before I have a chance to put it in drive so something is working better.
Using the voltage meter, the battery is around 12.5 volts while the car is off. This is so even if the battery light comes on. After the car is on, it now either charges the battery like normal or does not let it go down in voltage. Good enough for me.
There's a reason I chose the title I did for this article; as I mentioned, me and my wife are very busy and we're having issues. Money issues. Car issues. However, I will be posting articles again more often. We will be fine within a couple months and I can get back to cars.
Not so Krispy Klean...
I feel bad for Lexi. She hasn't been washed in the longest time. Inside, I haven't had time to clean either and I'm still moving stuff over. The car is in bad shape as far as cleanliness. I think I'm going to end up doing a full detail tutorial for newbies like me when I can afford the products.
I really appreciate those who have stuck around. If I ever leave, I will let you guys know but I don't think that's going to happen. Go wrench on cars or something. I have no energy... Going to go pass out.
- Rokas K.
No comments:
Post a Comment