Alternator Pulse
Yes the starter relay - I’m not good when it comes to electrical.
The battery is fully charged, ammeter is hooked up but not working and the pulley on the squareback alt is smaller, so should be turning faster. I don’t have a multimeter, but I do still have the old roundback alt - took them both to O’Reilly to be checked and they said the roundback failed test but squareback is good
Remove the wire from the alt. Batt to the Starter relay junction, and the ammeter should read true.
Open the car door and is should show slight discharge with the dome light on. Turn on the parking lights and discharge should increase.
After starting the engine, the meter should show moderate charging and then drop to zero.
A little pulsing of charge to discharge at slow idle would indicate the alternator is not making much power at that rpm.
If it happens at higher rpm, something is wrong.
That's the best you can do on the car without a multi-meter.
O'reily's didn't happen to provide a printout or say what test the roundback failed?
If not, its unfortunately common.
A lot of the chain stores don't really provide much info (lucky if the people there even know how to hook up the older alternators).
As far as the squareback, I would think the tester would show a bad diode as A/C ripple and flag it.
If its a revised squareback, we know they need more current to create a field than the older squarebacks and roundbacks. Sometimes that's an issue at low rpm, and I beleive is often an issue for the voltage regulators.
