Hey guys,
Just made it down to L.A. from Sacramento to go to Sevenstock today. About halfway through the grapevine I noticed my voltmeter gauge pointing below 12V. I made it to my bro's place near downtown though. The only dummy/idiot/check lights that come on in the dash is the seat belt and e-brake light. All other lights do not turn on. It seems that the charging system is not working either. Anyone have a spare alternator or check relay? I'll go double check the grounds, fuse box and cables to see if I can see any issues. All help is greatly appreciated! I hope I can make it to the show and of course back up to Norcal!

 

or a multimeter please?

 

Sounds like an alternator.. But yes test with a multimeter!

 

I want to give a huge shout out to Mel who gave me a ton of help when I honestly felt stranded and stressed with my battery not being charged. Thank you, Mel! I will never forget my experiences in L.A. for this Sevenstock weekend. I'll be praying to the rotary gods that I make it back up to Norcal safely without issues.

 

So, what turned out to be the problem?

 

I'm having the exact same symptoms as you describe. What was the solution that you and Mel came up with??

 

my old alternator needed to be changed and that was it. of course, mel took extra precaution and wired me up a professional quality connection from the alternator to the fusible links and then to the positive terminal.

 

Awesome, thanks for getting back to me. Interesting that those symptoms lead to the alternator and not something like the CPU. And you said you made it halfway from NorCal to LA with it just "charging" at 12V?

 

Not enough juice to run all the lights.

 

Yes not enough juice to make it the whole way with headlights.

I left at 9:30 PM from L.A. and decided to go the 101 route instead of I5. I made it back in the S.F. Bay Area at around 8 AM.

I decided 101 because of the more town stops in case I needed to pull over which was a good idea. I thought things would be swell for the rest of the trip since I've been driving 2.5 hours since I left L.A. and my voltmeter hasn't moved from 12V. Then all of a sudden my voltmeter starts dropping really fast and my lights dim a lot. I lucked out to pull over to the last exit which was a rest area around Santa Barbara. Luckily I had a Sienna accompany me on the trip back which even more luckily had the same battery size. So we kept swapping the battery every time my voltmeter would reach around 10V. The next time I had to pull over was in Paso Robles and then in Salinas where I took a short nap. So from Santa Barbara I was able to drive about 1.5 hours in between battery changes with headlights on cruising at speed limit.

I was ****** dead tired after driving all night. I was pretty bummed to not bring my car to the show but I am hella glad to have met all the close and chill fellow rotary guys in the SoCal rotary community that helped me out. I'll never forget that and I think these things happen for a reason. I'll be sure to lend a helping hand to any rotary folks in future crisis.

 

Glad u made it back. Hate it when my car runs out of electricity.