Flaky Battery light after alternator replacement
07-19-2002, 06:55 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 25
Flaky Battery light after alternator replacement
Long post.... but here goes.
After hearing a noise finally go from occasional to predictable, I traced it down to two components. One was a growling noise and this turned out to be the idler pully. The second was a high pitched squeel at predictable RPM's, and this turned out to be the alternator. I decided to replace the belts at the same time since I needed to take at least one of them off and the car had 120,000 miles on the original belts.
After reading post after post here about alternator replacement, I felt pretty good that this would be a somewhat easy job to do as I had done this on other vehicles. Things went rather smooth and thanks for all the people on here who had posted their success's and failures.
After getting the alternator back in, I ran the car and 5 miles from my house, it began to shut down. I was able to get back home after shutting down the AC, stereo and the non-essentials. Checking the voltage at the battery when I got back home, it was at 12 or so shut off, but cranking it up gave a steady drop. I took the alternator back off and up to the local Advanced Auto who checked it and said it was good. Not believing them, I got a credit and headed to Nissan who had 1 in stock (no one else locally did). I got this one back on and same result.
I took the battery up to Advanced and they charged it for 20 minutes. Got it back in, car performed excellent. Drove it back to Advanced and they did their in-car test. Checked out good there too, however, I noticed the Brake light flickering on occasionally.
As I drove home, it was beginning to get dark and I turned on the lights. As I did, the clock began to dim and the instrument panel lights grew dim as well. I made it home, but now the car won't crank again. BTW, the battery checked out good too and the system checked out good as it was charging. Now the battery light flickers, doesn't stay on, but I haven't seen the brake light flicker.
I've checked the electrical connections over and over again (only 2 of them at the alternator) and I have checked the belts and adjusted them to the tension recommendations from here and the Haynes manual. Is it possible the belts just aren't tight enough and this is causing the alternator not to charge or is there something else I need to look for?
Tomorrow is another day and I hope to get this all taken care of.
Thanks in advance!!!!!!
Danny
After hearing a noise finally go from occasional to predictable, I traced it down to two components. One was a growling noise and this turned out to be the idler pully. The second was a high pitched squeel at predictable RPM's, and this turned out to be the alternator. I decided to replace the belts at the same time since I needed to take at least one of them off and the car had 120,000 miles on the original belts.
After reading post after post here about alternator replacement, I felt pretty good that this would be a somewhat easy job to do as I had done this on other vehicles. Things went rather smooth and thanks for all the people on here who had posted their success's and failures.
After getting the alternator back in, I ran the car and 5 miles from my house, it began to shut down. I was able to get back home after shutting down the AC, stereo and the non-essentials. Checking the voltage at the battery when I got back home, it was at 12 or so shut off, but cranking it up gave a steady drop. I took the alternator back off and up to the local Advanced Auto who checked it and said it was good. Not believing them, I got a credit and headed to Nissan who had 1 in stock (no one else locally did). I got this one back on and same result.
I took the battery up to Advanced and they charged it for 20 minutes. Got it back in, car performed excellent. Drove it back to Advanced and they did their in-car test. Checked out good there too, however, I noticed the Brake light flickering on occasionally.
As I drove home, it was beginning to get dark and I turned on the lights. As I did, the clock began to dim and the instrument panel lights grew dim as well. I made it home, but now the car won't crank again. BTW, the battery checked out good too and the system checked out good as it was charging. Now the battery light flickers, doesn't stay on, but I haven't seen the brake light flicker.
I've checked the electrical connections over and over again (only 2 of them at the alternator) and I have checked the belts and adjusted them to the tension recommendations from here and the Haynes manual. Is it possible the belts just aren't tight enough and this is causing the alternator not to charge or is there something else I need to look for?
Tomorrow is another day and I hope to get this all taken care of.
Thanks in advance!!!!!!
Danny
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