ns87 Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 Now that I have a volt meter in my gauge cluster, I've noticed it acts kinda funny. - When car is cold, charges at 13. - In drive and sitting at a light after it warms up, with parking and fogs on, it hovers around 10. - If I put on a turn signal, voltage drops and bounces between 8 and 10 with the turn signal. Jumps to 13 if I accelerate. I cleaned all my grounds for my fog lights (installed them myself). I tightened the Aux post. I'm going to double check my battery cables serp belt tomorrow. Anything else I should be looking for? Alt is a reman from 3 years ago. Car isn't acting too terrible, but I am taking it on several 200 mile trips in the next few weeks. Also, I know 3.1 have ugly sounding idles....but the idle noise surges up and down with voltage bouncing between 8 and 10 and my RPM stays PEGGED at 600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GtipGary Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 My lq1 is doing the EXACT same thing i changed the battery, pulled the alternator out and replaced it with the reman 180 amp out of my other gp, and tightend quite a few connections. None of those fixed the problem. I havent had ne problems with it at all and ive been driving it like that for about three months. i just dont use my directional very often unless i have to because seeing the gauge bounce up and down and hereing the idol bounce annoys the hell out of me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1990lumina Posted April 17, 2007 Report Share Posted April 17, 2007 Check the voltage output with an actual voltimeter to be sure..could be some wierd short or something fucked in the cluster...so to eliminate any problems with that, use a hand held meter and see what it says...if it doesn't put out 14volts at full load it isn't working properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted April 18, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2007 I can test this at any "hot" electrical connection right? It should be the same I'd assume wherever I did it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1990lumina Posted April 18, 2007 Report Share Posted April 18, 2007 I normal do it directly at the battery, or the aux. terminal and the negative side on an engine mount or something, but yes it should be about the same anywhere if the wiring in your car is in good condition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted April 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2007 alternator checks out 14 volts. Voltage drop only occurs when I put on brake lights I left my hazzards on for 20 minutes and it killed my battery! 3 years ago I kept blowing brake light fuses and the stealership charged me 500 to find the chaffed wire and fix it (near the brakelight switch). Should I look there first? I think its been all soldered and electrical taped, so idk where to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toms92gpse Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 alternator checks out 14 volts. Voltage drop only occurs when I put on brake lights I left my hazzards on for 20 minutes and it killed my battery! 3 years ago I kept blowing brake light fuses and the stealership charged me 500 to find the chaffed wire and fix it (near the brakelight switch). Should I look there first? I think its been all soldered and electrical taped, so idk where to start. A weak battery will cause alot of the stuff you were describing to, especially at idle. The alt puts out more power at higher engine speed and doesn't strain as bad trying to charge a bad battery, at idle the alt is having a hard time putting out enought power to make up of the bad battery and keeping everything running. I had my car knock off when my last battery went bad. My alt was fine it just wasn't strong enought at idle with the UD pulley and system to put out enought to keep it running with a bad battery. I would leave the door open for 5 min and my battery was to dead to start the car. I ended up getting a new battery from walmart at 1am because of it. I haven't had a problem since then and that was over 2 years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1990lumina Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 Sounds like you have some bad wiring to your brake lights..something is causing a serious drain on that circuit.....like the least efficent thing in your car is the rear defrost..if that didn't cause a drop in voltage then the brake lights defintaely should not. I'm not all to sure how you go about checking all the wiring. Maybe look for a bad ground somewhere, wherever the lights ground to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted April 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 tom: I thought weak battery, but I just replaced it a year ago with an expensive (70) one that has a 3 year warrenty. Plus my car starts up fine after sitting for a week without running. Jeff: I'm gonna look at wires in the trunk and right near the brake switch. Some snow fell into my trunk this year, so I'm sure a ground somewhere in the trunk got a bit corroded or something. Its not a huge deal bc the car isn't stalling or anything. The second I give the slightest gas, voltage goes right back to 14. I will deff update this in a couple weeks once school is out and I can trace this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GtipGary Posted April 25, 2007 Report Share Posted April 25, 2007 i dont think its a problem with the battery because my battery is brand new about two months old. Its a duralast gold... not the best but also not bad. and also my alternator is reamped to 180 and it still seems to be doing the same thing as yours. I had my battery and alternator checked at autozone with a voltmeter at the battery and it said that the alternator was fine and so was the battery. i turned on my directional and the stuff in the car dimmed and the idle jumped but the readings on the voltmeter didnt change Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockfangd Posted April 26, 2007 Report Share Posted April 26, 2007 my DIS tells me exactly what my voltage is. I went through 3 alternators before i went with tthe HO that solved the whole prob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted April 30, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2007 I solved the problem. I spent 6 hours rewiring my fog lights. I did them 2 years ago and I'm ashamed at how poorly they were wired. This time I even took off my grill and zip tied the loom with new wires to another loom so it looks stock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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