ok, so my battery is dead once again. though it was winter taking it toll and an engine sitting for 2 months. but today it died again. only had about 130 km on the car and it needs boosting again. it got a new battery couple weeks ago and i was fine till today. I need to boost it and disconnect battery to confirm it is indeed the alternator. i want to know if I can piggy back my alt to directly charge the battery, and further more need to know if I can put any kind of alternator on. sugestions, comments, anthign helps. sorry for the poor writing, these 10 hour work days take a toll
So you disconnected the battery with the car running? Isn't that bad for grounding reason's and whatnot...?
it doesn't hurt an older car......Its a good way to check the alternator. You just have to be careful with newer ones cuz it could really screw the computer up
i had the same problem on a 5th gen i had. Your alternator might be over charging the battery causing it to drop the cell. Becareful and take your battery out. then tip it on its side, see if acid spills out, that happened to me every time.
never unplug the battery cable or the plug on an alternator that has a built in regulator, it will fry plain and simple, just get a voltaget tester multimeter and test it that way. the only cars that could handle that kind of abuse were pre 75's as by 75 they started modifying and upgrading the charging system and putting weaker parts into it. the reason being is when the car is running and the alternator is spinning and energized there is a magnetic field inside the alternator(ever have wrench near the case of the alt?) when you unplug your battery cable while this field is still in effect the built in voltage regulator has no way to do its job and the voltage created by the magnetic field has no where to go but into the voltage regulator, causing it to fry. basically you overload the voltage regulator (i may be off on a few points but thats the way i understand it)
battery slowly died, started fine for about 10-15 times i guess but the last 2 were really slow that i remember, and finaly it just couldnt turnover, and i got that machine gun sounds from my relay. ill see if i can borrow a volt meter tonight to check the current. how many volts should i be checking for, and what connection points are best to use. addition info: my old battry we though was dead woul dhave the following thing happen. 1. boost the car 2. disconnect cables 3. car died seconds later seems like a bad alt to me i think
if you disconnected the jumper cables and it died, it died because there was no charge in your battery, and your car was running off of the voltage coming from the other car....your alt is dead as a door nail. where are you located? its really easy to rebuild these alternators, its either a rectifier(about 30 dollars) or the internal voltage regulator or brushes, easy to test on all accts. you really should by your self even just a cheap multimeter from harbor frieght. make sure it has ohms and volts and you will be able to test anything. http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/h8.pdf this is good info for any "import style" alternator i.e. ours it will tell you what to test for, you can replace individual parts, i used a rectifier from a different toyota in my 5th gen and it has been doing find ever since, had to slightly modify the tin metal housing to fit as the battery connection was orientated differently. if anyone has questions on where to get parts and what not pm me and i will help as best as i can mephtar your alternator is dead now you just gotta figure out what part is dead(more than likely either voltage regulator or rectifier)
