Replies to this message are sent to The Chevelle Mailing List ------------------------------------------------------------ First of all check your battery and make sure it's fully charged... Should be around 12.6 or so... 11.9 volts or less means it needs to be charged. Here's the 4 tests that came in the instructions of my alternator: If you have an amp meter in your car: Turn on the ignition and lights. Note the amount of discharge on amp meter. After starting engine, amp meter should indicate less discharge or a charge condition dependon state of bettery. If engine idle is lwo the amp meter may indicate a slight discharge -- this i snormal. Amp meter should be advance to "0" or charge as engine speed increases. Check belt tension from time to time. Belt slippage is more apt to occur when battery is discharged or weak or when heavy demands are made on charging system. Apply a moderate load to the charging system (i.e., high beam headlights) and run engine at 1500 RPMs. Using a digital voltmeter set for DC volts and with one test lead on the grounding bolt at the "adjusting ear" and the other test lead on the negative (-) battery post, measure to see if you have DC volts present. if you have a reading of 0.10VDC or higher, you have a poor ground connection between alternator and battery. Recheck your alternator grounding points at the "foot" and "adjusting ear" and the negative battery cable. With battery fully changed and engine running, check voltage at the battery (+) post and ground (-) post. Voltage should be 13.8 to 14.5VDC, anything above 15.5VDC is dangerous and anything below 12.7VDC means the battery is not charging. Using a voltmeter, measure the voltage drop bet ween the (+) terminal of the battery and the alternator (+) output terminal. Voltage should be less than 0.40VDC. If voltage is higher than 0.40VDC, check for poor connections between (+) of alternator and (+) of battery. Even too small a (+) battery cable will cause this problem. Rodney. 71 Chevelle Phoenix, AZ ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Brady" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2001 10:23 AM Subject: [Chevelle-List] testing alternator question, please help- > > Replies to this message are sent to The Chevelle Mailing List > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Hi all, > > Sorry to keep asking so many questions about > alternators, charging systems, whatever, but I just > bought a tester and need to know what to set it to in > order to verify my alternator is working. I just got > the tester from Pep Girls, and it's a "Superpro" > digital multitester. > > Also, does an alternator put out volts, amps, or both? > > Just curious... > > Jim > '66 Malibu > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger > http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ > > ----------------------------------------------------- > To Unsubscribe please visit www.chevelles.net/list.html > To start a new topic, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ----------------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe please visit www.chevelles.net/list.html To start a new topic, send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
