Some of the gauges in my dash broke, so I replaced all the gauges with aftermarket ones (autometer) and they all work. I completely removed the cluster housing including all warning lights (charge light too) and mounted the new gauges on the (black) cluster housing itself.

So my car was idling, and I noticed that the voltmeter was showing only 11.8 volts. Suspecting that the alternator was not producing juice, I disconnected the battery and sure enough, the car died. I took the alternator to autozone for testing and they said it works fine.

I looked in the fsm and it showed that the charge light is part of the circuit (L terminal). So am I reading it wrong? Since I removed the charge light, that L branch is an open circuit? So if you drive around the the charge light bulb goes out, the alternator stops working? That does not seem right.

Help please! thank you.

 

this should help. BTW - don't remove the battery with the car running, if the alternator is bad and putting out very high or low voltages you could fry your car. The battery is sort of an anchor keeping the voltages within range. The lamp lights when there is a volage difference as indication only and should not cause issues with the charging path.
Is your belt loose? Connectors/wires bad? Is the voltmeter something you added in the dash (maybe its wrong) or did you measure it at the battery?

http://alternatorparts.com/understan...lternators.htm

 

great article! thank you and yikes on pulling the battery! I won't do that again.

With the key ignition on, I get the following voltages:
Terminal B (big fat + connector on alternator) = 12.8 (Vb), and that's correct per fsm.
Terminal L = 0 volts, this should be about 1 volt per fsm
Terminal S = 11.8 volts, this should be Vb per fsm

I also have a spare 90A cosmo alternator which I also swapped in and got the same voltage readings. This alternator was also tested at the Autozone and it works.

The battery in the car is a fat Odyssey PC1200. My voltage gauge shows the same voltage as my handheld voltmeter.

Now I have not check the terminals while the car is running. I'll do that this weekend.

In the mean time, here are some pics of my project.

 

wow that looks like one hell of a setup /\

nice work!

 

thank you thank you

So I fired her up today and the alternator is working, 14.5 volts.

Must have been a loose connection.