Well was on my way to Disneyland this AM and as I got onto the freeway ramp the engine acted like it had a miss so I let off the throttle and nothing then as I pushed it harder it did the same. I looked down at my volt gauge under the dash and noticed as I accelerated it went from 13.8 volts to like 16. So I quickley got off the freeway and turned the engine off and inspected under the hood. No hot wires or battery terminals. So at that point I decided I should go home and grab my cj7 jeep. Well, I turn the key to start the engine and nothing... nothing reads on the volt gauge like it normaly does in key on or auxiliary. Completely dead...

So I had it towed home and left in another car. So what I have is a powermaster 3g one wire alt. Its only a year old. im not home so cant check the wiring with a test light and all yet but id like to get an idea of whats happening and what it could have burned up. Im thinking the solenoid is fried. Other then that everything is intact including the alt to solenoid wire...

 

Thats all there is on a single wire alt. Power, just have to make sure you run a fat enough cable 6 ga should do, depending on what amp the alt is. When they make the sigle wire alts, the exciter is hard wired inside, so you dont need the other wires. That's why people use them. Make sure your grounds are good and clean and run a 10ga ground from the battery right to the alt. i dont trust the brackets and bolts, they rust and corrode.

 

Well right.... its a 10gauge wire and was a newer solenoid. But something somewhere fried its either the solenoid or my ign switch. Because I got zero power for anything running on the key on or aux position on the key.

And that alt should never be putting out anything over 14 volts really so something is wrong with the alt unless something else could make the voltage spike under acceleration like it did. Ran fine yesterday.

 

Does your battery positive meet the alternator wire at the starter solenoid? If so, disconnect the alternator wire and check voltage at the solenoid. If you have voltage there, and not at the ign switch, then you will need to run down the line to find the issue. I don't know if there are fusible links inline. If everything is powered up, look at the alternator. You can also bench test the starter solenoid with a 12v battery to check operation. Just jumper the 12v post to the starter post. I would do it in the truck. Just beware if that solenoid is good, the starter will run. If you only have 10ga wire going from your alternator to your battery, I would change that to a 6 gauge minimum, if your alternator puts out over 100 amps.

 

Ok I will try that in the morning and see what happens. Fingers crossed its just a blown solenoid...

 

I would check the battery they do not like to be overcharged it may have killed a cell. Thats an easy check, may no be the problem but aleast its quick and easy and rules out a potential problem.

 

Well I took the alt off and took it to orielly to be tested. On their machine it tested fine. So I called powermaster and the first thing im going to try is to put a better ground on the alt as well as the proper size hot wire coming off of it. I also need to install a mega fuse inline.


Another issue I found was my battery cables were fine on the outside but around the post was gross.. So I cleaned that all well and I think everything now has a better connection. So im getting close to firing it up again and seeing if the volts spike when revved up. If so ill be sending the alt back to powermaster to be looked at.


And both my batteries have perfect voltage. One is a tad low.

 

Have you checked voltage to your truck with just the battery hooked up? Why a ground wire? Usually the connection to the block is sufficient. The megafuse is a good idea. Those are at the yards on any of the 90s Fords.
Good luck.

 

Yea I moved it around the front yard just running off the batteries and it reads 12 volts on the gauge

 

So here is what I did. My 2nd battery had a ground that wasnt grounding so I got a new cable and ran it to the block like the pass side battery. On the pass side I got new hot and ground cables since the old were getting gross. I also replaced the alternator hot feed 10gauge wire with the proper 4gauge wire with a mega fuse inbetween. I then made sure everything was clean and working voltage wise.


Fired up the engine and no issues so far! Its a steady 14 volts!