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Noticed the battery light came on on the way to work last week and usual voltage just a hair over 14v slowly started dropping until everything went dim. Charged the battery and limped the car over to the garage and hooked up meter which read 12.33 at the alternator and 12.23 at the battery.
Found a rebuilt alternator at the local pick-n-pull and swapped the whole unit out instead of just the regulator...car has 151k miles so might as well, it was cheap enough. Started up and verified charging 14.34 at the alternator and 14.23 at the battery, so all is well now and back to driving her on my weekly commute.
The most likely culprit was the voltage regulator which looks to be in very poor shape!
*Note, for better access, it is a good idea to remove the upper radiator support bracket or at least push it out of the way in order to rotate the alternator out of there. Since I had a spare long bottom bolt, I cut the original one so I didn't have to mess with the fixed coolant pipe. I reverse the bolt and it has worked fine since and no problems with it backing out or the unit becoming loose so far.
Now to clean the 4 wheel sensors and replace the overhead console.
Found a rebuilt alternator at the local pick-n-pull and swapped the whole unit out instead of just the regulator...car has 151k miles so might as well, it was cheap enough. Started up and verified charging 14.34 at the alternator and 14.23 at the battery, so all is well now and back to driving her on my weekly commute.
The most likely culprit was the voltage regulator which looks to be in very poor shape!
*Note, for better access, it is a good idea to remove the upper radiator support bracket or at least push it out of the way in order to rotate the alternator out of there. Since I had a spare long bottom bolt, I cut the original one so I didn't have to mess with the fixed coolant pipe. I reverse the bolt and it has worked fine since and no problems with it backing out or the unit becoming loose so far.
Now to clean the 4 wheel sensors and replace the overhead console.
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