Alternator woes

[Bizzy]

As if I don't have enough things to worry about with my nice new to me SHO, now I'm getting a damn battery light once in a while. I've noticed that I can make it happen anytime I want by just rompiung from a stop from 1st gear. It comes on at about 1500rpm and stays till about 4000 then shuts off, then I don't see it any other time.

Now I just bought this car like 2 weeks ago, and she runs great, but I know it's been thru 2 alt's before this one. I've read the posts about brushes and that terminal on the top and I plan to try that tomorrow if I have time. But what next, could tere be some kind of wiring problem that is causing this to just show up from a dead stop in 1st gear.

 

[rlw001]

Check your battery cables before doing anything rash like buying a new alternator.

 

[Bizzy]

funny you say that but I was cleaning some crap off them the other day and I looked at them and said "damn these look like shit"I was thinking of getting some new ends crimped onto the wires and see if it helps any. I'll have to get a terminal brush/cutter and clean the battery terminals too.

I would think that it would be something wiring related since it only happens once in a while.

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'm gonna get up early and hit autozone before I have to go to work.

 

[hooterville]

Same thing happened to my car. What eventually happened is that I drove it too long with the battery light messing around like that and the rectifier got so hot that it melted the battery connector on the alternator. Needless to say, I was stranded.

The alternator cannot maintain a proper power level. When you hook it up to a machine, it might read perfectly fine sometimes and low/high other times.

My advice, get your alternator checked at a local rebuild shop, because it might be your rectifier. I had all of the components in my alternator rebuilt in a month and it was the rectifier all along.