[Pontiacgirl45]

Ok thanks so much😊

 

[PONY MAN]

Ideally, a new AcDelco GM genuine equipment alternator. Alternatively, an AcDelco gold/professional which are sometimes hit-n-miss.

 

[Pontiacgirl45]

Thanks Pony Man. I'm definitely going for as original as possible 😊

 

[AUSSIEV8]

Yep. GM original part number or AC Delco Part Number for THAT vehicle, which is pretty much the standard part now anyway.

Don't worry so much about charging your battery externally overnight. That's a different issue and anyway, if your alternator is not charging the battery whilst driving and I suspect it isn't, your external charger could easily take 10 hours to bring a battery to close to 100% charged.

 

[Pontiacgirl45]

Aussiev8 ,
We haven't hooked a battery charger to it.
It was showing 85% charge after it sat overnight. That was what the alternator charged it at according to the DIC. I'm just guessing that is all it will charge it too.
The DIC said the battery reading was 14.4 volts that morning as well. It seems the alternator is doing it's job as it should but all the other quirks this car has is a mystery. I'm afraid it's something electrical somewhere but we gotta find it lol! This morning the radio display had lines all through it. When I turned the ac fan down the radio would get fuzzy and the lines would still be there. I tried to turn it off but it wouldnt respond to anything. I finally cut the car off and back on and the radio display was back to normal. It's doing all sorts of crazy things but not all at once more like here and there. We plan on checking everything this weekend and hopefully we can solve this lol! I'll keep updating on it.

 

[Thawk]

The display is another good tool, leave it in voltage display while driving and see if it drops while issue persists

 

[Pontiacgirl45]

Thawk that's a great idea. We will try that as well! Thanks😊

 

[AUSSIEV8]

All pointing back to the voltage regulator out of the alternator which I think incoporporates carbon brushes. It did on previous models and I have resolved voltage issues by changing it. The voltage display can indeed show 14.4 volts because voltage can be fluctuating in thousands of a second where metering does not pick that up.

 

[Pontiacgirl45]

Well my boyfriend did find that the positive battery terminal was loose. He tried to tighten it but it would not tighten down completely so I bought 2 one for positive and one for negative. He went to tighten down the new positive terminal and same thing it wouldn't tighten all the way. These are the ones up front under the hood not the battery in the trunk. We will have to drive it tonight to see if it did anything at all. We will keep it updated here! I did drive it with the DIC on this morning and I turned everything on in the car full blast and it was reading between 14.0 and 13.8 and 13.9.

 

[AUSSIEV8]

Again, a positive battery terminal issue (in the boot) should really only cause you an issue on starting the car and running any electrical load when the engine is not running. Once the engine is running the alternator takes over because - its output voltage is always higher than your battery voltage so it takes all the load of the car plus recharges your battery.

The terminals up the front are just an extension of the battery terminals in the boot. They serve no useful function other than jump starting.

 

[Pontiacgirl45]

Haha! Well I guess that means it's not fixed lol! I'm just going to buy another alternator and have it installed next week. Hopefully that'll fix the issue! We couldnt find anything else wrong in the wiring between the battery and the alternator.

 

[JCMG8]

Make sure, double sure, all the ground connections are good. This is not only battery, the under hood ground points of the harness to chassis, harness to engine and engine to chassis.

 

[Thawk]

While it was reading 13.8 - 14.0 volts i imagine the blower motor was not dropping speed, correct ?

 

[Pontiacgirl45]

No the blower motor didnt drop speed. I only drove it literally from my boyfriend's work to my work locations and that's only like 5 miles to both lol! We will check all ground points again before buying a new alternator but from what we've checked so far, everything looks to be ok so far.

 

[Thawk]

Keep driving it and monitoring voltage, if the blower drops speed you will see it on the volt reading if alt drops output, You may have already fixed it from what you guys found and took care of if it was a voltage drop from those connections

 

[Ramblerman]

Well my boyfriend did find that the positive battery terminal was loose. He tried to tighten it but it would not tighten down completely so I bought 2 one for positive and one for negative. He went to tighten down the new positive terminal and same thing it wouldn't tighten all the way. These are the ones up front under the hood not the battery in the trunk. We will have to drive it tonight to see if it did anything at all. We will keep it updated here! I did drive it with the DIC on this morning and I turned everything on in the car full blast and it was reading between 14.0 and 13.8 and 13.9.

AutoZone has lead battery post caps that take up the excess space between the post and the clamp. Useful, if the post has been worn down by cleaning many times. I've got one on my '96 F-250 that's been there for six years and still works fine.