Markstre302
02-25-09, 10:55 PM
So last week I take my car to work on Friday, and when I started it up there was a strange humming noise that I could feel coming through the shifter that would go away when the revs were above idle. Checked the gauges, listened for other noises, and decided to see what it was once I got there rather than be late. No issues on the way there other than a misfire when I was getting on the highway/ cleaning the rear tires off at the top of second. Went out to the car during lunch to see what was going on, put the key in the ignition and no seat belt chime, the tach reads 1k RPM and the motor isn't on, and the fuel pump doesn't even whir. (it's a 255 Walbro, she whistles pretty good on startup) Look at the factory volt gauge and it's barely above 8V. That night I got a jump thinking nothing of the humming from that morning, cause I thought I left the dome light on and that is what drained the battery. It had to let the truck I was jumping from charge it a bit before it started up, but once it did she ran fine. I noticed that the volt gauge wasn't going above 10, even when I revved it, but told myself that it was just because the battery was so dead there was too much load on the alternator to let the voltage get any higher. Left the car sitting in the parking lot outside the window to let the battery charge while I finished up for about 10 minutes. I can hear the car and see it from where I was, and suddenly I heard the click of the electric fan turning on, and the car promptly shut off. Went out to restart it, and she wouldn't even make the starter solenoid click. Turns out it wouldn't run with under 10 volts so we had been charging my deep cycle battery with the jumper cables, and it was running off that instead of my alternator. Thankfully I could bum a ride with one of my co-workers to get home for the weekend.
Monday I take the spare car to work with a bunch of my tools cause at this time we know it's the alternator. During lunch I picked up a rebuilt one from the local parts store and of course it is clocked 90 degrees off and instead of having 2 plugs your supposed to cut and solder the new alternator to the harness. So here I am laying under my car on an old piece of carpeting in a gravel parking lot at sunset stripping the wires from both harnesses and just pushing the stranded wires into each other and wrapping them in electrical tape because I don't have a soldering gun or any other way to connect the power leads to the alternator. If it just would have had the friggen right plug I would have been done in like 5 minutes. :x Then I forgot my jumper cables so I had to wait till the next day just to see if that fixed the problem. Thankfully it did, but now I had a horrible belt squeak.
The root cause of the alternator failure, besides it being 17 years old, was the upper radiator hose was leaking where the metal tube to go around the supercharger bracket went into the hose connected to the thermostat housing. It was dripping down the bracket right into the alternator, which seems to have shorted the brushes as it still spins freely but was making that weird humming noise. When I pulled the upper hose piece off coolant splashed around and I thought I had rinsed it all off with water, but I missed some that had gotten onto the serpentine belt. It probably would have been fine if I hadn't let it sit for a full day before starting it up. When I returned the core for the alternator I picked up some McKay Belt Grip, sprayed that on, and then took her to redline a few times on the onramps. So now, the charging system is stronger than it has ever been, the belt is no longer squeaking, and I really wish I didn't always have to work on my car in some parking lot somewhere. Sorry for the lack of pics, camera battery was dead as well.
Monday I take the spare car to work with a bunch of my tools cause at this time we know it's the alternator. During lunch I picked up a rebuilt one from the local parts store and of course it is clocked 90 degrees off and instead of having 2 plugs your supposed to cut and solder the new alternator to the harness. So here I am laying under my car on an old piece of carpeting in a gravel parking lot at sunset stripping the wires from both harnesses and just pushing the stranded wires into each other and wrapping them in electrical tape because I don't have a soldering gun or any other way to connect the power leads to the alternator. If it just would have had the friggen right plug I would have been done in like 5 minutes. :x Then I forgot my jumper cables so I had to wait till the next day just to see if that fixed the problem. Thankfully it did, but now I had a horrible belt squeak.
The root cause of the alternator failure, besides it being 17 years old, was the upper radiator hose was leaking where the metal tube to go around the supercharger bracket went into the hose connected to the thermostat housing. It was dripping down the bracket right into the alternator, which seems to have shorted the brushes as it still spins freely but was making that weird humming noise. When I pulled the upper hose piece off coolant splashed around and I thought I had rinsed it all off with water, but I missed some that had gotten onto the serpentine belt. It probably would have been fine if I hadn't let it sit for a full day before starting it up. When I returned the core for the alternator I picked up some McKay Belt Grip, sprayed that on, and then took her to redline a few times on the onramps. So now, the charging system is stronger than it has ever been, the belt is no longer squeaking, and I really wish I didn't always have to work on my car in some parking lot somewhere. Sorry for the lack of pics, camera battery was dead as well.