Hey, 924x2150, I liked your suggestion about putting grease on the battery terminals. I've been using that spray-on red goop from the McAutoParts store, which works well, but I never thought of just using grease. Any time I've used some sort of sealer on my terminals, I've had ZERO corrosion on the battery terminals, even years later.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only wacko out there.

Jason

 

I just wanted to add my two cents, as i just spent two days hunting down a charging problem - fried 3 alternators in the process. I have a 1995 4.9, which came with the G3 alternator from the factory. It turns out that one of wires in the electrial connector that goes into voltage regualtor (the 3 prong connector) was dead. The white one, in the middle (between the green and yellow wires) had a shaky connection - which would make contact after I would install an alternator but then loose connection after driving down the road a little while.

I've tried read the question hard, but I'm not sure I've answered it or offered any help - at any rate, this is my experience which was extremely hard to figure out.

--john

 

flat4vw-

Sounds a lot like what mine is doing. How did you fix it? Did you have to replace the 3-prong plug?

Thanks

 

yep - pulled back the black conduit as far as i could, cut the old connector off and crimped a new one on. i left a lot of extra slack to make it easier to work on. i could have done a more professional looking job but the truck was stuck in downtown and i needed to get home. i havent had any problems since.

but you said that your alternator works intermittently? i was killing alternators - i'd install it, the truck would run and charge for a while, then it would stop charging - i pulled the alternator back off, took it to the shop to have it bench tested and it was dead.

here's my sequence of events - driving the truck and all of a sudden the alt. guage reads low, and when i cut it off it doesnt have enough juice to crank it back up. i play around with jumper cables to see whats up - but im guessing that the alt. isnt charging. limp home, barely make it. the next day i pull the alt. and have it bench tested. works, but is worn out so i buy a remanufactured one. install it, works for about a 15 minute drive then same situation and the battery light comes on. pull the new alt., have it bench tested and its dead. get another remanufactured one and install it. worked for 5 minutes then stopped charging. drove the truck anyway to the alt. shop - pull the alt. again, test it, and its dead. so then we spend about an hour going over everything with a fine tooth comb and finally find this bad connection. that was last friday, i've been driving the truck normally since with no problems - so i'm fairly confident that i solved the problem.

by the way - shameless plug for Dollar Carburetor and Electric in Gainesville, GA for helping figure out this problem and only charging me for one rebuilt alternator.

hope this helps a little more
--john

 

Sure does.

Thanks again!

 

Great - let us know how it turns out

 

Flat4vw-

Do you recall how the shop diagnosed the problem with the 3-prong connector?

 

used a circuit tester and a voltmeter. what was dead on mine was the connection inside the plug itself - so the wire running to it was conductive but the connection went dead inside the connector - if you jiggled it hard it would register but as soon as you released any pressure it went out.