Power Loss

[Techno]

I do not know why but I have a terrible power loss when I drive at night. When my lights are on the RPM ind jumps and the engine seems to sputter. I have no problem at all during the day. (unless I put a large power load on the system by turning on the lights)
I do not think that it is my altenator. I have 14.59 vdc at idle. The car idles fine when I remove the battery cables while running. I replaced all battery cables after the trouble started thinking that I might have a bad cable. Nothing changed. I checked all the fuses and all the connections. Nothing.
The only thing that I can think of that I have not checked is that the ACCEL coil might be bad or maybe the Altenator might not be putting out the AMPS that it should. The Alt does whine a lot. I mean A LOT.

Does anyone know what else might be bad? And how do I fix it?

Thanks in advance

Techno

[Magny]

ok for one alternators aren't really supposed to whine, if it does, the bushings on it are probably defective. the other thing is, first, how long did you have the coil for, if anything the coil shouldn't be the prob. second, you might have a wire that hooks to your aux. system that is shortin it, thats my guess. but yeah if your alt is whining, then its defective.

[Jareds 89 LX-i]

It sounds to me like the alternator is messed. Even if it's putting out enough volts, it may not be putting enough AMPS. There's several ways to test it, but one way is pretty hard on our cars, and the other you'd need a battery load tester with an inductive pickup (like a VAT 40 for example). First way is to full field the alternator. On the back of most alternators (not all, and I'm not sure about ours), there is a little hole/contact usually marked with an "F", or it will simply say "ground here to test". You want to take a paper clip or jumper wire and case ground that little contact (you do this while it's runing, btw). It'll spark a little bit and it's normal, but the alternator should get really loud and whine, and the engine bog down. The reason for this is cuz you're bypassing the voltage regulator and making the alternator work at maximum capacity, thus causing it to become a HUGE magnet and very hard to turn, causing the engine to slow. If you ahve an ammeter with an inductive clamp, put that on the battery cable on teh alternator (arrow pointing away from alt), so you can read max amps. Try it with the lights off, and the lights on, but only hold it for a few seconds each time to keep from frying anything (the paperclip will get HOT). If there is no change when it's grounded then the voltage regulator is probably bad, and/or brushes/slip rings are worn.

Second way is to check with a volt-ammeter tester. Connect each clamp to it's appropriate battery terminal, and the inductive clamp on the large battery wire on the alternator, making sure the arrow is pointing in the direction of current flow (which would be away from teh alternator). Start car and hold at about 2500 RPM's, then turn the load control knob all the way clockwise to apply a load. Watch the AMPS and volts scale, watch for teh highest AMPS reading, but when volts gets down to 13.0 let go of the load knob (you don't want it to go under 13 volts). Your maximum AMPS should be within 15 amps of the alternators rated output (which for ours is 65, I believe). If not, replace alternator.

I don't know if this will actually help ya any or not, but hey it's some info on how to test an alternator, heheh. It probably is the alternator.... if it's whining I'd replace it.

Good luck!

[Magny]

man, good thing jared got into the full technical term for it :lol otherwize i would be here all night just about for getting the info (tryin to remember all the tricks from auto class in H.S.)

[Techno]

Thanks for your help Jared. I did the paperclip test. and the result was replacement is required. Just have to wait now til I can afford the $190 for a new one. That is little high in price I know but it is for the 70 AMP altenator.

Thanks again for the help

Techno

[shepherd79]

70 amp? what kind amp is that? our stock amp should put out 65 amp. so paying 2.5 times the price for extra 5amp, it is just not worth it.
you can take it to the shop and they can rewind it to put out more amps., but more amps doesn't mean you will get all of them at idle. high output amps are made to work above 2000RPM.
your best bet would be to get remanifuctured one for under $90 from autoparts store (autozone).

[A20A1]

You don't get moisture in the cap or coil do you?
Have you tried turning the lights on durring the day, to see if it's the electrical drain and not the temperature.

[Techno]

I am sure that I do not get moisture in the cap. I checked. Even when I am driving during the day, when I turn on the headlights the car does the same thing.
There is one thing with the coil. I noticed this morning when I started the car up to go to work, that the power drain did not seem to affect the car at all. It was not until I had driven a couple minutes that the car started doing the same thing as before. I did notice that the ACCEL coil was pretty warm when I got to work. Should it get very hot?

Techno

[A20A1]

If it's getting super hot there could be too much resistance when there shouldn't be. Check the wires inside the distributor.

[Techno]

Well,
Went to the auto parts store today (schucks) and had them test my alt. Found out that it is good. Started looking deeper and found out that the inductive pickup in the dist is the whole root of the problem. The control module fails the simple test that I read in Chiltons.

I think Alex, The JunkYard KING! can get me a TEC distributor to replace it with. Thanks Alex

Techno