Very Confused!

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bloodyholly

bloodyholly

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Recently...

My car would keep dying on me, especially when I would arrive at a destination.

...In the parking lot...

I've had to change my alternator, my battery and my voltage regulator recently.

Car is no longer dying but according to a digital reader at O reillys, the alternator is bad again and is going to drain my battery fast.

(This is the fourth alternator, I'm starting to lose my mind.)

Any ideas?

My ride is a 67 barracuda.
 
After I installed the new voltage regulator, the mechanic said it wasn't fully ground to the car (I didn't screw it tight enough into the firewall I guess)
 
Yeah but I changed all three of those guys. And the alternator is whirring and acting weird again.
 
bloodyholly said:
Yeah but I changed all three of those guys. And the alternator is whirring and acting weird again.
Click to expand...

Did you check the voltage when it makes the whirring sound?
That usually means it’s putting out a lot of voltage.
The current problem sounds like the regulator is garbage.

New doesn’t mean good.
 
I would not trust anything you posted concerning Oh 'reallys.

Can you determine if it is charging, or not, and when? Can you rig, even temporarily, a voltmeter so you can monitor system running/ charging voltage?

First thing I would do is make sure the battery is charged, (on a charger if necessary) and take it somewhere to be load tested. You want a real carbon pile load tester, not some toy someone carries in their shirt pocket

Then if you can determine the battery is in good condition, you can move on the the charging system.

If you are unaware, the factory ammeter show show charge ( to the right) after starting engine, and should "taper back", generally to center and hover pretty much at center after getting the batt up to normal

A voltmeter, if you can rig one, should run about 14V when driving off idle.
 
The ground comment from your mech:

There may or may not be more to that. It might be that the body is not really well grounded to the battery. One way to insure this (battery main cable should be grounded to block) is to buy a 1 ft--1 1/2ft Ford style "starter" cable (eyelet to eyelet) and ground it to the engine block, and to the body. The master cylinder bolts work for that, and on a V8, the same holes are on the rear of the driver's head, which are on the front of the pass head. So you can find a short bolt and connect that cable there

Be sure the paint is scraped from the firewall for the VR mounting, that the bolts are not stripped, and you might scare up a couple of star washers. Does not matter much if they are internal or external star

Then we can go from there

I may not be here much, I am fighting a house fire situation.
 
Thank you guys for the comments. Appreciate it.

Also yeah I'm starting to realize new does not always mean good.

I don't have a lot of money right now and buying another alternator or voltage regulator will be a pain but I'm willing to give it a try. (I already blew a lot of money on my car lately)

The mechanic said he scraped off some paint on the firewall to keep the regulator tight. I'll try speaking to them soon but they're closed on the weekends.
 
Maybe someone can chime in on how to test a regulator.

We can bring the battery in for load test.

Not sure which alt you have but I have a nice clean one that looks to be SWEET on the shelf.

I probably have some welding cable with some 1/0 connectors we can crimp on.

Open to more suggestions of what to check besides the grounds. Im just a guy with a multimeter and a couple wrenches.
 
If you have the original points dist, check the points gap. Could be close to zero, should be about 0.016". I do not think this is a charging related problem...
 
Switch it over to the dual field alt. with electronic reg. its only one wire, and a plug. It will charge at an idle and work much better. With the bracket pictured you don't have to drill any holes.

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Use some common sense........
These engines ran fine for decades with the original charging system. Other than a component [ or poor connection ] becoming faulty, they will fine for several more decades & there is no reason to upgrade/change parts on a system that has been reliably powering millions of cars....
Did you check points gap [ post #13 ]???????????
 
When the electro-mechanical sticks in the on position, it triggers the alternator to full-power, full-time.
Obviously, if it does this, it is well grounded.
With the alternator running WFO, guess how long the batter lasts.

Get rid of that old-style regulator.

BTW, I have seen my Mopar "constant voltage" electronic regulator stick "on" as well, and the result was over 20 volts output into my Optima battery. I caught it almost right away, so no damage was done. Still, it was a scary thought for a second as I was a couple of hours from home.
I just disconnected it and ran off the battery for a while, then ran the regulator for a few minutes, and so on.
We got home just fine. and I pulled a factory unit out of the parts bin which, 25 years later, is still running fine.

BTW
If anyone wants to know, the Optima cost me nearly double of a standard battery. But it lasted well over 15 years, so in the end, it was the cheapest battery per year, that I ever owned.
 
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