I thought my alt. was going bad.

I have been looking at getting a new alt since this one seemed to be dropping voltage pretty quick. Well I was doing some work on the engine getting it ready for the summer , you know replacing hoses and the belt. While replacing the belt I noticed that the idler pulley was tight (89 TBI)and looking a little closer I could see where things where starting to heat up ,the pulley was starting to deform.:LOL: Replaced the pulley and things are back to normal, well sort of......


The volt meter on the dash shows to be charging at more than 13.5 volts when I first turn on the truck. After the truck has been on for a while it shows to be charging as low as 12 volts. The thing is that I hooked up my volt meter to the battery and then to the alt. and they both show to be chargeing at 13.5-13.90 the entire time which I think is fine. I guess its time for a new dash gauge.

Typical factory voltmeter. My '97 does the same thing. You can count on it to indicate if the alternator is completely dead and not much else.

Kitz

I got one of those guessamatic voltmeters too. Less accurate than my ammeter, but safer.:LOL:

My 97 did/does the same thing as well, BUT, I have noticed that sometimes it stayed running low. I also noticed that when it stayed running low, if I popped the hood and grabbed the hot lead, it was always loose!! Side mount cable and the way it hangs/lays coming off the battery, no matter how tight I got it, within a couple of weeks it would be loose again. I ended up stripping the threads out of a fairly new battery, so I switched the hot cable to a top post end and haven't had it run low for quite sometime...might check that on yours...Donny