Alternator/electrical issues, need help.
 

I am having some trouble replacing the alternator in my 88 n/a. before replacing, the idiot lights would come on one by one and the voltage on the battery would drop until the car just gave out. the battery is fairly new so i took the alternator to get tested and it was shot. i put the new one in (reman) and now when i start it's like there's no power at all.. no cranking, no lights come on, no gauges move, completely dead.

i checked the connections on the battery and made sure the alternator plug and ground wire were all secure. my best guess would be that maybe the alternator wiring harness busted when i pulled it out, but it looked fine to me. can anyone help me find out what could be wrong?

thanks,
chris

If you turn the key to "ON" and there is no power. It means your battery is dead. You should actually be able to start your car without an alternator. The alternator just keeps the battery charged.

When your other one was dying, did you remember to re-charge the battery? I am guessing you have a dead battery. I would jump the car and let it sit for a bit and re-charge itself.

Even though the battery was new, if you let it drain out, it will still be dead. But you can either use a charger to re-charge it, or just jump your car and let the alternator charge it.

well, the battery was either dead to start, or you grounded the positive post on the alternator and its resulting in a massive short... meaning that if the batt wasnt dead before, it certainly is now.

two things:

one i do remember accidently connecting the ground wire to the wrong post on the alternator... the B terminal is in a different location on the reman so i got confused.

two, i just tried to jump the battery but i still get absolutely no life when turning the key (btw never had so many sparks flying when i connected the negative jumper cable to the engine block.)

any more ideas?

you sure you hooked the battery up right? if you didn't you'd be like the third person this week...

battery is probably backwards if there is sparking when you connected the cables.

Hopefully you didn't burn out all the electronics in the car when that happened, as in many cases you will.

ok i hope im not that stupid. so i took the battery to get tested (was very dead) and then fully recharged. i just tried reconnecting it and there was some serious smoking and sparks flying, so i didn't connect everything all the way. now i have no idea why it would do this as I am 100% positive that im connecting the battery cables correctly. Plug is in the alternator and the ground in the correct place.

I am now 1000% sure you have the battery backwards.

Positive (+) terminal of the battery in next to the shock tower.

Negative (-) terminal of the battery is the one nearest to the headlight.

The Ground cable of the car is the black wire with the Yellow strip at the battery, and is the longest of the two battery cables.

that sounds right to me too, icemark, and that's how i have it connected. do you think it may be something to do with the fact that its a warm, fully charged battery.

There should not be any smoking and only minor sparks (if any) if hooked up correctly.

and a fully charged battery is still 12.6 volts

just tried another couple of times.. when i connected only one cable to its respective terminal there were no probs (just positive cable or just ground cable), but connecting both causes same issue = smoking and sparks - and even starts to damage the battery terminal if i hold it there for long enough. this is really odd and im absolutely sure im connecting it right.

is it possible that the parts store charged it for too long? doesn't make much sense but.... i have no clue why this would happen.

sparking and smoke = bad

Are you sure you have it hooked up correctly. You are describing exactly what happens when the battery is hooked up backwards.

Is the alternator's power lead hooked up and not resting against metal? Did your starter work fine before? Those are pretty much the only other things that can cause what you are describing besides the battery being in backwards.

and you can't overcharge a battery and have a higher voltage than 12.6 volts.

reading back over some of your other posts in this thread I see you saying something about a ground wire on the alt... and you do know that there is not a ground wire on the alternator unless you or someone else put it there

I say you double, and triple check the Alternator, and battery cable connections. Think of it this way, it worked before you went messing with the dead alternator right? Well since then, from what you have said, you have messed with the alternator and the battery, so your problem has to lie with one of the two, or the connection between the two.

Might I suggest disconnecting the alternator completely(and securely wrapping the connectors in electrical tape) and then try to connect the battery back up. Maybe the alternator they gave you is jacked up? I highly doubt it, but I have seen weirder things...

thanks i ll try your suggestion... i have no other option.

and thanks to you too icemark.. ill investigate more

ok so i figured out what was wrong. the alternator they sold me at discount auto parts was missing the rubber washer that comes off the B terminal so the wire was rubbing against the alternator housing and causing a short whenever i connected the battery cables. we ordered another POS alternator ... hopefully they will give me a good part this time.

thanks again for your help.

chris