1st Generation Specific 1979-1985 Discussion

Alternator Problems

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Old 06-09-2003, 11:22 AM
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my alternator is getting super hot and it doesnt seem to be charging good. when its under load, ie lights and wipers and defog, rainy day, it sits at the 12 volt mark or below. i switched alts, and the same thing. i ran a straight wire to the positive bat. terminal. same thing. a friend told me it could be the pulley.

i have one of those 20 buck dual belt jobbers made from iron or something. im gonna go home and change it and see if its better. i dont recall it getting that hot before the engine blew and it had the stock pulley.

anything else i should look into while im playing with it??

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Old 06-09-2003, 12:13 PM
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make sure all the wires are decent, it could be the battery cables too. my gsl-se wont go above 12v sometimes, and its the battery terminals



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Old 06-09-2003, 12:52 PM
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battery cables, eh. thats whole mess id like to avoid. but maybe should since its not efi anymore, i should get rid of them unnecesary cabling.



at least its nice outside for a change.

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Old 06-09-2003, 01:04 PM
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yup, and its nice today here too



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Old 06-10-2003, 10:17 AM
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ok, so yesterday i found out that my alt has become magnetized, gonna take it in for a check up. would that be causing it overheat as much as it does??



a friend was telling me that we should rip out the whole ecu and harness because there might be an unused relay or someting getting stucked sucking the current. i know i should for that "clean" engine bay look, but dont want to deal with it right now. i checked online, didnt see anywhere where it said that when u replace the gslse fi systems with the racing beat dell or carb period, that the ecu and all its relays and crap need to be plugged, jumped or taken out. all i saw was to jump a cable to make the fuel pump operational. is this correct??



it sat for over a year. all i wanna do is drive it....
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Old 06-10-2003, 10:56 AM
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we fired up my buddies 20b front clip yesterday and that alternator was hot too. ive looked at the diagrams and i think the gsl-se ecu only does thee motor, so you can pull it out



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Old 06-10-2003, 02:36 PM
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I got my 20B yesterday and it didn't include an alternator. Oh well, I've got 4 spares from various years. Two are known good. The others, one is an REPU externally regulated with a dual sheave pulley. The other is small of unkown origin, but it's got washers to space it correctly on a rotary (I think). I think it was once in my rotary MG before I got it. A 55amp FB alt is going in it to clear the hood.
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Old 06-10-2003, 04:42 PM
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Originally Posted by Jeff20B' date='Jun 10 2003, 11:36 AM
I got my 20B yesterday and it didn't include an alternator. Oh well, I've got 4 spares from various years. Two are known good. The others, one is an REPU externally regulated with a dual sheave pulley. The other is small of unkown origin, but it's got washers to space it correctly on a rotary (I think). I think it was once in my rotary MG before I got it. A 55amp FB alt is going in it to clear the hood.
no biggie, just use fc/fb stuff



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Old 06-10-2003, 09:20 PM
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a friend suggested that maybe the battery was bad therefore over working the alt. so i decided to run it with out the battery. as soon as i disconnected the battery the car started to run better, as if a big load taken off plugged teh battery back in and the idleing went down again an dthe alt started to warm up.



any ideas that can help me try and pin point the problem before i take off a gazillion wires?



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Old 06-25-2003, 09:25 AM
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2 weeks ago i went to have the battery checked where i bought it. they said it was bad and replaced with a new one. its been running fine since. just need to verify a short i might have with the headlights. no biggie as the battery is not being drained.



just thought u guys might want an update.lol



thanks too all who replied...
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