Charging/Battery Light - Please Help...

[lone73]

Jeremy,
I've been spending some time on the schematics. Figured out my problem anyway. You are right the brn wire goes to the choke htr relay, then on to the gen light. The bad news is it goes back to the fuse block from the relay. If you jump to the other side of the CHR fuse you reach an orange wire that supplies power to WDO (window?), A/C, Auxiliary Fan and I'll bet seats as well but I don't see that fused on my drawing. That orange wire comes thru the ignition switch. It looks at this point like something was drawing too much juice and may have opened up part of the circuit prior to the fuse block.

Two things I'd check at this point:
1. Find the orange wire I'm talking about that goes back to the ignition from the fuse block and check it for 12V. I'll bet you ain't got it.
2. Find the actual choke heater on the engine and check it for on open or short. It might be shorted out. Or WAS shorted, burned up, and is now open.

let me know...
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[Ludigdrums]

Awesome man!!! I'm so excited! You sound so right! I need to look again at my diagrams, I don't remember seeing what you are talking about, it looked like it just ended. Thanks so much, I will post back with the results as soon as I have em!

What do you mean exactly by CHR? Choke heater relay?

The thing with the choke is that I have a Holley Carb w/electric choke. So, I don't even think that the choke relay is neccessary. All the choke needs is ignition switched power. So, I don't really know where those wires are going.

I might be up all night! ;-)

- Jeremy

 

[lone73]

Chr

Jeremy,
Been out all day cruisin' in my wife's '96.
CHR, yes, choke heater relay. I'm gettin' lazy, huntin' and peckin' on this keyboard.

FYI, My schematic just ends with wires going to the next page of the book. There is no other page though. I suspect that's where the window switches would be and maybe the seat wiring. I'm a little hobbled here.

Good luck with it...
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[Ludigdrums]

OKAY!!!! I found it! There are 2 connectors on the top of the steering column that you cannot see. One has a blue connector, the other one is smaller and is black. Well, that black one somehow got disconnected! Which is what you were talking about lone73! That brought back my power seats, windows, and blower.

But, I'm still left with my initial problem with the gen light. Plus, now that I have that connector back in, the relay started buzzing again!

NOW, when I check the voltages at the 2-wire alt connector this is what I get:

Ign on, connector connected to alt, RED 12.2 BRN 2.2.
Ign on, connector disconnected from alt, RED 12.2 BRN 11.8
Ign off, connector connected OR disconnect, RED 12.2 BRN 0

So, these are different than before when that connector was unplugged.

When the car is running, the alt. is charging pretty high, like 15.0 - 15.2, but this is probably because the brown wire is putting out 18-22 and telling the alt to keep charging.

Again, I can't see how this would be the alt because with the wire disconnected, the brown wire is putting out way too much voltage. I think it should be 2-4 v when disconnected.

Hmmm, I going back at it, but please feel free to respond, as I will be checking back.

Thanks again! This was an exciting development!

- Jeremy

 

[lone73]

Try finding the light blue wire that is supposed to go to the actual choke heater under the hood. Make sure it isn't touching a ground somewhere. Better yet, pull the c.h.r. relay and measure the resistance (ohms) between the light blue wire inside the connector and a known good ground. Whaddya' get?

If you find it grounded, isolate it and recheck ignition-on to see if the relay still buzzes. The relay buzzing sounds like it's rapidly being energized and de-energized (turned on/off). Based on the voltages you've been reporting on the different wires I don't see how it could come on at all.

 

[Ludigdrums]

Well, I don't think I found the correct light blue wire in the engine bay. I did find one with a neighboring black one, but neither seemed to connect to the CHR when I checked the resistance.

The resistance between the light blue wire and ground, is 0.

This might be of some help: When I first got the car, the alt clock position was wrong and the 2-wire connector was practically sitting on the valve cover. Also, the bracket was missing a bolt causing the belt to come loose. I fixed had fixed that problem a while ago.

But, I feel like the battery light has also been at least dimly lit, and I had posted a thread about the difference between the bat light and the volt guage cause it was confusing why it read good voltage, but the light would still come on slightly.

So, I'm thinking theres a slim chance that the brown wire has always been barely connected, and not really giving me this problem. Now that I made the connected nice and solid, it's putting too much power thru.

So, now, like I said, I'm back to square 1, except with all the cleaning I've done, I can definately tell a much better improvement in all the electrical components.

Just a little more people....

Thanks again!

- Jeremy

 

[Ludigdrums]

This is what I don't get: If I disconnect the choke relay, shouldn't the bat light go out? It doesn't. That's why I feel we're barking up the wrong tree with the choke stuff. The relay is what is supposed to transfer the power, and so if it's not connected, those wires should not be getting any juice right?

Plus, I don't understand why the shop manuals "Charging System Diagnosis" says there should be appox. 2 to 4 volts at the brown wire when disconnected from the alt. Unless I'm reading it wrong and the ingition is to be left on from the previous test.

Grrrrr....

- Jeremy

 

[curtis]

Ok, here's another thought. IF the relay buzzes like it is turned off and on is it possible the rectifier bridge is out in the alternator and it is putting out AC instead of DC voltage?

 

[Ludigdrums]

IT WAS THE ALTERNATOR!!!

I still don't really get it. I followed the shop manual diagnostics, and it led me to believe that it wasn't the alternator. Well, I got a new one, and voila! Perfectly fine now.

I appologize for all this back and forth...and like I had said, I tried a different alternator. But that may have been at the same time that the other connector came loose, causing my pwr accesories to not function, thus causing me to still have the same original problem.

It cost me $40 at Autobarn, and it fits way better than the old one, which was also a replacement, that never fit properly.

Now my only problem is, I'm not getting power to my radios ignition switched power. But everything else works.

What a trip. I knew it had to be something simple. And at least now all my connections are really clean and tight.

Thanks again so much for all your help. This forum is the best!

- Jeremy

 

[curtis]

Great Jeremy, Now I'm really curious. what exactly was wrong with the alternator.

 

[Ludigdrums]

Yeah, Autobarn doesn't test them, but I'm assuming it may have been the doide trio or something. There is a 40 ohm resistor in there which may have been shot, and not sending back the correct voltage through the brown wire.

I'm a little annoyed at the shop manual though, because I followed their troublshooting diagrams, and it said there was an open in the brn wire.

Basically, the gen light works by comparing the battery voltage to the voltage of the alt thru the brn wire. If they are different, the light illuminates. So, my brown wire was putting out over 20 volts. That's why as the rpms increased, so did the brightness of the light.

I'm glad that's over!

- Jeremy

 

[Ludigdrums]

Not Out Of The Woods Quite Yet...

Well, I can't get the radio 10A fuse to not blow right away. When I test it with a voltmeter, I get battery voltage. I even tried a 20A fuse and it blew right away as well.

Also, something is very weird. I took it for a test drive, and the car seemed to run amazingly well (not sure if it's because I haven't driven it in a while or not?) which put a smile on my face. However, the voltmeter guage was acting kinda crazy. The battery light never came on, but at idle (~500 RPM) the volts would read 12 or so, and then it would sway all the way to the left, when I gave it gas, it went up. While driving, it was reading 14-15. At one point while idling, it basically lost all electrical power, although it didn't affect the engine at all as it would if it were a starter wire messed up.

Anyhow, I drove it around for about 20 min, and when I shut it off, I tried to start it again, and the battery didn't have enough juice. Tested the battery and it only had around 11 volts. Mind you, this is a new battery as of a couple months ago.

What's scaring me is that I don't know if the other messed up alt messed up anything else. Or what I may have disturbed in trying to find messed up wires. I've checked all the wires many times, everything is plugged in. I'm stumped.

Again, everything electrical works, except for the radio because the fuse keeps blowing.

Sorry this is so long, but please help...I wanna drive!!!

- Jeremy

 

[lone73]

CHR buzz

Been too busy to keep up with this thread lately...

So, does the CHR buzz now with a good alt? I was thinking like Curtis on it, maybe an a/c coming from the alt but I don't know much about the inner workings of an alt.

Jeremy, don't be stickin' fuses in that are larger than the recommended size. You'll be 'burnin' down the house', or so sayeth' the Talking Heads... You've got a bad short somewhere in that circuit. That's AMPS not voltage. Trace it out in the circuit, start from the fuseblock. Figure out where the wire goes. Start disconnecting stuff downstream. You can save yourself a bunch of fuses by sticking one of your meter leads into the fuse holder and the other to a known good ground. It shoud read very near zero ohms if it's blowing fuses. Start disconnecting stuff downstream of that fuse and watch the meter. As soon as the ohms jumps up you know you're on the trail.

In the meantime, throw the battery on a charger and get ready for round 2 !!
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[Ludigdrums]

Okay, sorry for all this back and forth, but now EVERYTHING'S OKAY!

I odn't know why the alt was acting funny, maybe it just needed to be broken in. Everything's great now.

As far as that fuse blowing, I figured that out, it's the cruise control power wire for some reason. I gotta look at that tomorrow. But, when I leave it disconnected, everything is fine. Also, I wasn't going to leave the higher rated fuse in, I just wanted to see if it would blow that one right away too. It was just a test, but I thank you for the warning!

So, like I said, everything's good now, except I need to see why my cruise got screwy. I must have bumped something in all my wiring mess.

I must say once again...cleaning all those contacts was a really good thing! My tach used to bounce whenever I used anything electrical, like the turn signal, etc. No longer! It's great now.

So, thanks once again for all your help and dedication to this longwinded thread!

- Jeremy