driving home from my parents for Easter roughly 2 hour drive I think my alternator went bad. initially when my rpms went above 2000 my volts would drop and the battery woulnt charge. After a while it dropped to 1500 rpms and soon after the battery would only charge up when my truck was under 1200 rpms. the trip ended up taking 4 hours because i had to keep my truck below the certain rpm or it would die.


Is this a bad alternator?

 

How could you tell the battery was charing below 1200 RPM and not above 1200 RPM?

It could be the alternator. You should pull it and have it tested at the local national chain auto parts store.

 

I could tell because i have a volt gauge and it would as soon as i would hit a certain rpm it would go from reading 13.8 volts to 11.1 volts. Then if I kept it above the rpm the volts would continue to drop and eventually get to like 9.5 volts.

and unfortunately the nearest parts store that could check it is like 30 minutes away.....Oh the joys of living in the middle of nowhere

 

also forgot to mention the battery light would go on whenever it went above the certain RPM

 

If it's not bad it's certainly not nice!

 

Well OK, sounds like a bad alternator would be the obvious place to start.

 

There is a bad voltage regulator in there.. is it built inside the alternator?

Find out where it is.. here is the pic.. find it and get it diagnosed / fixed.





Ford Voltage Regulator Wiring Diagrams.

 

I changed out the alternator today and all is fine!

 

good for you!

 

NEW ALTERNATOR NEW PROBLEM!


so i replaced my alternator and battery and my truck runs fine and charges the battery but now my lights flicker. I also noticed that my voltage is alot higher it now ranges from 14.5 to 15.

What could be causing this? Voltage regulator like gear loose mentioned?