Is it the Alternator?

[Guest Booth89e]

Please forgive the ignorance, I haven't worked on cars since I rebuilt old Fiat 850's back in High School, and that was like working on a glorified lawnmower.

I am having some electrical problems with my recently purchased 89' TC. THe previous owner had wired after market fog lights in the front grill and ran a switch to the dashboard. In addition, they had installed a new stereo that the 10 amp fuse would burnout occassionally. So, I put it a 15 amp so as not to have to keep having to replace it, and I didn;t care if the stereo burned up.

I recently replaced the battery due to accidentally leaving the headlights on (twice) and killed the old battery.

I decided one day to turn on the foglights to see if they would go on without the headlights (of course they should they were direct wired to the battery). Well when I did that the stereo started going blank every couple of minutes or so and then come back on. I knew I screwed something up.

So, all this may be completely unrelated but the car was slow to turn over one day, which it felt like a drained battery and not a starter issue. As I drove it around, I was steadily losing power and it was intermittent at times as well. I pulled over and idled for a bit and the car began to run a bit rough and I smelled burning electrical, so I shut it down. I tried to turn the car over and it was absolutely dead. So, I decided to disable all the wiring attached to the battery, since I didn't know if it was the foglights or after market stereo and then jumped the car. It started just fine but when I pulled the cables it died within 30 seconds. I re-jumped it and ran it a bit with cables attached. Pulled them off and kept the car at just norht of 2000 rpms. I noticed my right passenger window wouldn't go down (odd) and after 4 or 5 minutes the engine started misfiring and eventually sputtered out. Battery is dead. I pulled the battery to have the core checked, and frankly it could be underpowered due to the aftermarket crap. It is the correct size rating, but I noticed the old one was the next one up on the battery scale.

With all this said and I said a lot. I don't want to chase problems but could this be the alternator and if not what does someone suggest.

Grats for reading the novel.

[Guest My TC Toy]

That was a mouthful. I don't think that anyone can make an educated guess on the symptoms you noted. As for myself I would discommect any additional connections made to the battery and have the alternator output checked, that would put the alternator to rest. As far as the smaller output battery you installed, while I do not recommend this I do not think it is causing your problem(s).

Your installing a larger fuse may only cause a fire. Check the radio manual and install the correct size fuse. In the meantime check the "tightness" of the fuse in the fusebox. Your larger fuse may have caused the contacts to heat up and loose tension causing intermittant power.

Your window experience may just be a TC gremlin. It is not unusual, switches may just be dirty.

Good luck.

[ghostymosty]

Not much help from me, but a note of caution. You can damage the electrical systems of computerized cars by running them with the battery cables disconnected, this has not been an advised (or valid) test of an alternator for 20 years now. With a points type ignition it was a very good test for alternator output, but not a way to isolate either a bad alternator or voltage regulator. The voltage regulator on the TC is part of the engine computer and must be tested with the proper equipment. On a similar note, using jumper cables on a computerized car is also potentially damaging to both cars involved, but I think more so to the car that is being used to jump the dead car.

Engine misfiring and sputtering can be a symptom of the electrical system trying to run on less than 12.5 volts. Have you tested the battery with a volt meter to see how many volts are at the positive terminal while the car is running and also when not running?

[Guest LouZ]

I will write this again fot the ..... time. With crazy electrical problems like this. start with the fuseable links. Test all of them first. Good Luck, Lou

[Guest Booth89e]

Update:

The new battery I bought was bad, although it could have been an electrical problem in the car that caused it. I swapped in a new battery and had the alternator checked, and sure enough it is not throwing out enough to charge the battery. I have a new one on order ($157.00 plus tax, title, dealer prep, undercoating and FOB).

Anything I should know about installing the new one? like where is the old one..

Thanks in advance for the responses.

[Guest My TC Toy]

...."Like where is the old one?"

My best advice - take the car to a shop!!

[TwinCamFan]

The rubber bushings that 'locate' the alternator are probably shot, this will cause a misalignment and at the very least belt squeal on start up. Polybushings.com makes some replacement bushings that should easily last 20 years-or more...

Maybe you should look around the knowledge center at turbo-mopar.com (don't forget the hyphen, omitting it takes you to a pittiful excuse for a knock off website) That's the place where the guys that turn the wrenches are

Alan