So I have the wonderful 03 6.0, knock on wood, she has been pretty good overall.

I have a weird charging issue that has plagued the truck for awhile now. The batteries are newer and I have pulled them and checked them out of the truck. About 6 months ago my battery light came on. I checked with my volt gauge and sure enough i'm sitting at 11.6. In the morning it would bounce from charging to not with a best read of 12.6.

So I went to the local auto parts store and picked up their premium alt and dropped it in. problem solved. Well at least for the past 6 months anyway.

This week again I saw the battery light come on. Again I checked the charging and i'm back into the 11's at idle and 12.0 around 2000rpm at best. I just pulled the alt and took it, and my old one down to the parts store. Both passed working with a good charge.

So all this leaves me to look else where. Of course these trucks are all computer controlled so I need some help tracking down the issue or at least let me know where we are talking before I go down to the stealership and have them run through it.

So who else has seen this issue and what was your result?

Thanks for the help

Bill

 

Hi Bill,

First let me say that I'm NOT an engineer or a diesel expert! The fine people of this forum are, and are a GREAT help. There are a lot of good threads on this subject so take a look around.

I have a 2004 F350 Diesel. Had the same problem. When you start you truck between the starter draw, the glow plugs, injectors, exec..... takes around 195 amps for 30 sec or so. If you have a stock alt it maxes out at 125 amps and it starts draining the batteries and they never really recover. (unless you recharge them or drive a long time.) While driving at night with the heater full blast, lights on, and other things, pulls about 55-65 amps and drops your voltage down. I personally didn't like this cuz you start a domino effect with your FICM and injectors having low voltage.

Anyway! I ended up getting a 250 amp alt from DC Power Engineering. You don't have to go that big but my frustrations got the best of me. At least a 185 or 190 alt. Up graded my wiring from the alt to the battery (piggy backing with a #2 wire ( I think have to look))

Now the brunt of the start up is on the alt. The voltage starts at 12VDC with 190+ amps and during the 30 sec draw it inches up to 14VDC at 100amps. The voltage stays the same and the amperage slowly goes down to 17-22 amps with no lights on, at an idle, and after a 20 min. drive. Batteries are recharged.

Since I did this I no longer have alt, battery, or voltage problems. Plus power to spare.

Look at my albums for the upgrade. took a lot of pictures. But you don't need to do all that (I'm told)

Hope this helped?

Dave

 

Dave,

Thanks for the reply.

Let me give ya a bigger picture of the rundown on the truck. I didn't include more then the basics to keep most people from going off track looking for issues.

The truck has 2 XS Power 3100's under the hood as well as 4 more in the back. I have a pretty large stereo system that requires some serious juice. I have long since done the "big 3" or in the diesel case the big 6 I have a volt meter in the dash that monitors at the alt in real time that is accurate to a tenth.

Currently there is no big system in the truck as I have been redoing a couple of things. (links are in my sig ) So there isn't a big power draw. The truck is plugged in every night per XS powers recommendation. She sits on a 2 amp charge most of the night.

I do know of this amp draw for the glow plugs as even with 6 big batteries I can see a hard draw on them. Typically by the time I get out to the truck after I have remotely started it, charging is back to normal from the glow plug draw.

I had a high output alt in the truck from Powermaster and it went up in flames one day. It was more hassle then it was worth to have the truck down while it was being rebuilt. So in the meantime I have went back to stock. Since I don't have the system in, it's not really needed anyway. Besides if this one goes out Napa is a 5min drive away.


So heres the real question. Since Ford was nice enough to have the charge controlled by the computer and not an internal regulator like other brands. Does anyone know where this measure is taken at? Or does someone have an incite to my voltage, and resistance measurements at the control plug for these trucks. I do you I can add resistance to the charge wire and raise my voltage, but once it hits fords set limit point, it kills the charge wire. I know I am asking a lot here, but I was hoping someone else has seen this issue and found a fix for it.

Thanks

Bill

 

The fix is NOT to put in the stock ford alternator. it is rated at 110A but at idle puts out 85A, full tilt is 100A if using stock 4ga wire or 110A if using 2ga or larger wire. At idle, with glow plugs on draw will be greater than 90A. As stated by others, short trips will not fully replenish the batteries. You must remember that in vehicles no alternator should be used to supply main power and as such power always comes from the batteries which start to get replenished only after the glow plugs have cycled off. Ford should have made 140A alternator with 2ga wiring standard on all diesels as a minimum. I am running 4 batteries and 185A Alternator 2/0ga wiring and no problems here.

 

I wasn't looking at the stock alt as a "fix" but more of a means to get by until the higher output was fixed. The company I got it from is across the country, so having the truck down while it ships back and forth isn't a viable option. But I totally agree that Ford really dropped the ball in the charging dept.

The alt has 2 runs of 1/0 power wire going to each battery up front in addition to the stock wire. And I have also re-grounded the alt to both batteries. Then off both batteries is 4 runs ( 2 each) of 4/0 wire. Between the 6 batteries with the 110ah and 5000cca rated off each battery, I shouldn't have a draw issue causing the alt to fail.


I could easily see where short runs in the truck would wear down the batteries due to a short charge cycle. In my case, they do get a charge every night, so a short run on an under charge hasn't been an issue. I have a good amount of money invested in the batteries so I monitor their performance daily.

I also run a large battery bank in my V10 Excursion and don't have issues.

 

I am concerned about a high output alternator failing. At over 180A available draw on a truck that usually only has a maximum drain of 135A the alternator should never be overloaded or even work hard. But then you did say that you were using a very power hungry audio system.

 

The HO alt did fail, however I do not believe it to be from the truck, The company I bought it from has had more then a few issues with other customers in the car audio world. We have forums that are as active as this place and it isn't hard to see when a company is in trouble when you see post after post of questions about their product. I haven't replaced it due to money. I was pretty deep into the HO and it literally caught fire one day. It just so happened when the wife was just around the corner. It was exactly 13 months old, and a month out of warranty. But I was offered a hell of a deal to rebuild it IF I purchased a back up at the same time.

So in the mean time, I put the stock that came with the truck back in. We got some good time out of it before the battery light came on. When it did, the light and charge was intermittent for a few days. I waited till the weekend to replace it with the one I currently have. I assumed it was bad so I just let it collect dust on the shelf.

Now that the new alt has done the same, I took both back in and had them checked. Both turned out to be working good.

Now that I have put the alt back in, The charge has been fine all week with no light. So it's leaving me looking for a now and then issue.

As of right now, there is no big system in the truck. So it's not an issue of drain, and I also still put the truck on the charger every night.