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Requesting assistance with Charging System - RESOLVED
2006 F250 Lariat 4X4 6.0L with 136K miles.
second owner
Single Alternator, two batteries
I've had the truck for little under 2 months. No issues till recent.
Symptoms:
All things normal
Radio loses the radio station, radio is on, no signal, all stations affected, returns after 30 seconds or so, falls off again in a couple of minutes.
Followed shortly by ABS light
From there all electrical systems fade to black including running lights and interior lights.
Resulting in eventual shut down, lucky I had just pulled into parking lot.
Removed Alternator and took it along with batteries to Oriley's.
Alternator tested bad, one battery was depleted but both tested out ok.
Purchased a replacement alternator: ULTIMA 01-3821 73325539 (135A)
Part description indicates this is the TOP alternator for a 2 alternator system but part cross checks with OEM part with higher Amps.
Installed alternator, drove truck around for approximatly 1.5 hours, no symptoms. Truck sits over night.
Following morning (today) fire it up, head to the deer woods, symptoms start showing up around 30 mintes into drive. Pull into parking lot before system shut down. Take alternator and batteries back to different Oriley's. Alternator Passes, one battery depleted but both pass
Reinstall same alternator, get the truck back home. No symptoms, but it was a quick
Attempted to check battery test with voltmeter.
see results below:
60 degree afternoon
No load test Driver: 12.60 Passenger: 12.60
I was by myself so I couldn't check volts on crank...
Key on Engine off - Driver: 12.33 Passenger: 12.34
Key on Engine on no accessories - Driver: 12.28 Passenger: 12.28
Key on Engine on lights/Radio/Blower - Driver: 12.08 Passenger: 12.11
Shouldn't I see a 14.60 in there somewhere?
Thoughts?
END GAME: I would like to upgrade to 140A alternator.
When you checked your batts, did you disconnect the ground, from at least one, so you were checking them independently?
I'd do that and start looking at how clean your ground connections are -- check the braided cable from frame to body on passenger side too. Ground connections are key for everything to work, and the corrosion can be under the connector or inside the cable insulation...
Engine running no accessories on you should be above 13.6.
To check each battery without key on you need to pull one of the negative terminals, then check each. Once that is done the terminal goes back on and you can then check running, etc.
But along with the low voltage, the other situation that is off is not getting a below 12v value with key on, engine off when the glow plugs should be pulling a lot of amps.
A few months ago there was a head scratcher like this, no charging, one battery gets depleted, real goofy stuff. It turned out that on the passenger side the cross cable to the driver's side battery was broken, so the drivers battery once charged would supply the vehicle electronics, until depleted, and the pass battery would start the truck and get charged by a good alternator believed to be bad. So I would check that and if you can take pictures of both batteries terminals so we might see if something is goofy.
It doesn't seem to work well on remembering anniversaries.
DOH!!!!
I can't forget ours -- we married on what became one of the most awful days in US history, but we chose the date for a different reason and were married years before "they" chose that date. It still makes it tough to go out and celebrate...
I spoke to Oriley's and they let me swap out the 135A dual system alternator for a 110A single system alternator, which cost A LOT more....surprise surprise. The 110A alternator is brand new and manufactured in China. I'm sure a lot of you can appreciate that. It is installed in the truck for this second round of testing.
110A Alternator
38 degrees this morning.
As instructed, disconnected the negative cable on both batteries and tested:
both showed 12.36
Passenger
Driver
From there I ran the load test. See videos:
First video is KeyOnEngineOff and start up.
Second video is 3 minutes after start up. I was expecting to see the glow plug cycle complete and jump in volts as alternator takes over.
Please excuse the jumpiness in the video, hope you don't get motion sick. I ran into a new scenario that I had not experienced in previous testing.
While adding accessories to the load, I noted that I could NOT turn the lights/radio/blower on at the same time. Lights would prevent radio and blower from turning on. Leave lights off and I could turn both blower and radio on.
sorry for the low quality.
its easier to lay the meter agaist the hood so you can read it in the cab and run the leads to the battery if you're playing with the accessories.
Cables across the batteries from the glancing view look good and the voltage readings also indicate that. Of course what you have is the alternator not working, and probably everything else kicking out due to the voltage.
The next thing I would do is charge those batteries up so they are over 12.6v resting. Second, look at the connecting plug and wiring at the back of the alternator. The alternators output is dependent on the one small wire from that connector to the slice in the alternator/glow plug/battery cable. The other check I would make is disconnect the output cable from the alternator and check voltage from the eyelet to the pass battery neg terminal to make sure the fusible links have not blown.
voltmeter on window, didn't even think about that, good idea.
My little charger isn't cutting the mustard so I'll have to find someone with a real charger to get them back to full strength.
I did test volts across the alternator main power cable and it tested out exactly what the current batteries resting charge is (12.36).
So am I wrong in thinking that its something between the alternator and the ECM?
The connector on back of the alternator only has two wires: org/lt. blue and lt green/red. green/red goes to dashboard. the org/blue goes to ECM. My Haynes manual shows 3 wires?
When checking the wire, do I need to remove all the protective wrappings and see if I can gain access to the individual wires in the wiring harness?
Sorry, my fall back is 2003. We'd need to see an official 2006 Ford diagram before I trust Haynes. LG/R is the common coloration for the wire going to the dash and O/LB controling the alternator regulation. If ECM controlled that's more work. With the earlier trucks it would be battery voltage all the time from the battery through the O/LB as the sense wire and it's easy to connect the probe at the connector and play with the wire to see if there is a break.
Sorry to drop in here just to say something ugly but Haynes and Chilton manuals are of little use on a 6.0 powers F series. They do make good fireplace starters.
Since I was a teenager I have bought a manual for every vehicle I bought, sort of a "rite of passage". The Haynes for my F250 was almost worthless. Picked up a Chiltons and noticed the same pictures and some same wrong info and nothing on the diesel models. A little research revealed one company had bought the other (I forget which way) so no competition for a better product means we loose and they win because I bought the same crappy manual twice with a different cover.
I think Benny (BLADE35) is right, that print is for 2005 model. It was the closest thing we had to go by and we all passed several of those '05 prints back and fourth. It was helpful to me on my '06 but I didn't go over the whole thing.
