R
Rich Grise
[crossposted:
alt.autos.fiero,sci.electronics.basics,sci.electronics.design
please manage followups intelligently. Thanks! Rich]
On my '86 GT, with the 2.8L V6 and automatic:
My alternator belt had been slipping - It would squeal first thing
in the morning, and I'd notice on the voltmeter on the dash that it
wasn't reaching full charging voltage. But, it would stop squealing
before a block, and the volts would come up fine.
Then one day, it stopped squeling, so I thought, "Kewl."
But then I noticed that the volts weren't coming up to normal.
So I went and had the belt tightened.
Now, the volts seem a little erratic - sometimes it comes up to the
whole 13.5 (or so - normal car float voltage), but mostly it hovers
around 11-12V.
Is it possible for a charging system to be "marginal", i.e., maybe
if the alternator lost a diode, it might not put out enough charging
current/voltage? I'm ostensibly an electronics tech, so I should know
about this stuff, but I'm a little reluctant to go try to troubleshoot
my car with a VOM. It is the tech in me that suspects a marginal
alternator, or maybe even the regulator, but I've never seen one of them
go partly bad.
The battery would be my last choice, because it's a DieHard that was
brand new about 2 years ago, and I've been keeping it watered and,
up until this latest little glitchy thing, well-fed.
Should I just find a shop and ask them to diagnose it, or might there
be something that a klutz like me could fix with a VOM and a screwdriver?
(and maybe a few metric wrenches?)
Thanks,
Rich
alt.autos.fiero,sci.electronics.basics,sci.electronics.design
please manage followups intelligently. Thanks! Rich]
On my '86 GT, with the 2.8L V6 and automatic:
My alternator belt had been slipping - It would squeal first thing
in the morning, and I'd notice on the voltmeter on the dash that it
wasn't reaching full charging voltage. But, it would stop squealing
before a block, and the volts would come up fine.
Then one day, it stopped squeling, so I thought, "Kewl."
But then I noticed that the volts weren't coming up to normal.
So I went and had the belt tightened.
Now, the volts seem a little erratic - sometimes it comes up to the
whole 13.5 (or so - normal car float voltage), but mostly it hovers
around 11-12V.
Is it possible for a charging system to be "marginal", i.e., maybe
if the alternator lost a diode, it might not put out enough charging
current/voltage? I'm ostensibly an electronics tech, so I should know
about this stuff, but I'm a little reluctant to go try to troubleshoot
my car with a VOM. It is the tech in me that suspects a marginal
alternator, or maybe even the regulator, but I've never seen one of them
go partly bad.
The battery would be my last choice, because it's a DieHard that was
brand new about 2 years ago, and I've been keeping it watered and,
up until this latest little glitchy thing, well-fed.
Should I just find a shop and ask them to diagnose it, or might there
be something that a klutz like me could fix with a VOM and a screwdriver?
(and maybe a few metric wrenches?)
Thanks,
Rich