Alternator not charging. Clueless...

Well last week my alternator decided to stop charging my battery. Not sure what the deal is, but I changed the alternator out and it is doing the same thing. Anyone have an idea that may help fix the problem? The battery is showing around 10v and if I run the OHM meter on the alternator it mirrors the voltage coming off the battery.

I have not done any wiring at all and all my grounds are connected. Fuses are also good. Discuss.

If you unhook the big red wire at the alternator, is the alternator putting out anything? Should be well above 12v, at like 14v or so. Could just be a grounding issue with the alt.

Well I tried unhooking the wire that connects the battery to the alternator leaving the alternator running only off the crank and it was putting out .5v at idle and would go up to about 3.0v after I rev it up to 2500rpm. I tried another alternator and it yielded the same result. I am going to loose my mind!!

I spent about 2 hours wire hunting and everything looks good. I have no idea what the hell happened.

Did you test the wire at the battery, or directly at the alternator?

Directly off the terminal of the alternator. Anyway, both alternators are good as I took them to Oreillys and they passed with flying colors. I cannot believe something this retarded is keeping me from driving my car. AHHH!!

I also swapped out batteries and that is not the issue.

looks like you have some fuses and some fusible links to check

But Matt, shouldn't the alternator be showing voltage no matter what when you're measuring directly from it?

Mike, is the alt getting good ground to the battery?

Cyfun wrote:

But Matt, shouldn't the alternator be showing voltage no matter what when you're measuring directly from it?

Mike, is the alt getting good ground to the battery?

Which is exactly why I just said to check fusible links. Look at the wiring diagram.

Also.... if you unhook the main power wire on alt..... it's not going to work

Gotcha.

I took the wiring schematic down..... good old alldata don't like people posting their illistrations and they changed the schematic to be something else. lol So i just took it off to save confusion. lol

this should help contact these guys mike if these guys cant help dunno who can.....




http://www.lemonlaw.com/?gclid=CL280o_lg6kCFQoTbAod3ynrSQ

Now Jesse.... u post some stupid stuff..... but this is pretty funny. lol

I was able to get the service manual for a 97-98 impreza if that will help.

*PROBLEM SOLVED*

I was chatting with Matt over the phone this morning and we tried multiple ideas without success. We decided to try and jumper the black/white line over to the 12v yellow wire on the green connector on the plug. Works like a charm. Got it all cut and soldered in along with cleaning up all the wire loom that I ended up undoing tracing that damn wire.

By the way, the black and white wire is connected to the dummy light on the gauge cluster. Being that I do not have a light on my car it was hard to tell where the hell it was going.

Super excited that she is all fixed up as this was the only problem I have with the car minus the paint of course.

Thanks again Matt for the assistance.