86 EFI 302 electrical problems again
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From: winchester va
lol want mine whenever i get around to replacing it? its an older kenwood i think
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From: winchester va
now i gotta get a new one lol
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From: Loganville, WI
I removed the factory head unit as it did not work, I've never had a car with a factory digital head unit that did work. The GM's I've had have had some great speakers ( about the only thing worth anything on the car) I had to rerun all the speaker wires as well as there was 5 different kinds of wires spliced together, and put some panasonic door speakers I found lying around here. I put in a cheap Sony Xplod head unit, at least now I can listen to cds and can put the volume where I can hear it without it crackling like crazy. For tuners I still like Pioneer and Kenwoods the best.
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From: Loganville, WI
belts are all tight. I know if you unhook the battery and the truck dies the altenator is bad other then that not 100% sure how to test an internal regulator. It's 31 bucks for another so I'll just put another one in tomorrow. And if that don't work I'm going to take it out back and put it out of its misery like a lame horse. 
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Posting Guru
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From: Loganville, WI
ok that does not make any sense now that I look at my post, if the altenator tested good wouldn't the internal regulator also be good? And is the gauge part of the charging circut? If so would changing the gauge affect how the truck charged?
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Posting Guru
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From: Loganville, WI
also if someone could please post a pic of all their altenator wiring harness for a 85-86 EFI 302 that would help out alot. At one point the truck did charge properly but would just like to make sure they are all correct.
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From: winchester va
i don't know how accurate it is but i think i have a pic of that wiring in my gallery - could be wrong
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From: Virginia
As long as the key is in run, and the engine is not running, the alternator light should stay on in the dash. This light is hooked to the red/green wire out at the alternator that triggers the alternator to charge.
If you want to experiment, take a wire jump the battery + to the terminal where the red/green goes in. This should trigger the alternator to go "online" and it should start charging. If it does, I would look at the connector where the red/green enters, the red/green wire itself, and possibly you might have a loose connnection to the gauge cluster where the light is located.
If you want to experiment, take a wire jump the battery + to the terminal where the red/green goes in. This should trigger the alternator to go "online" and it should start charging. If it does, I would look at the connector where the red/green enters, the red/green wire itself, and possibly you might have a loose connnection to the gauge cluster where the light is located.
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From: Denver Metro Area, CO
to produce power when spun.
converting from a red idiot light to gauges... With the idiot light, there are two
fairly heavy-gauge wires running to the idiot light - green/red stripe and
red/green stripe come to mind. There is a device on the back of the cluster that
appears to connect the two together, my guess is it's some kind of shunt or
resistor. In any event, my truck wouldn't charge when the idiot-light cluster
was disconnected. Factory wiring for the ammeter gauge is entirely different,
there is a shunt built into the harness. So, my guess would be that yes,
changing the alternator gauge might very well cause the thing to not charge if
the conversion isn't done properly.
What changed between when it worked and stopped working? If it was the
installation of a different gauge, I would say, change it back to how it was and
see if it begins working again.
81-F-150-Explorer (and maybe Franklin2) is who you need, see if he/they
drop(s) by.
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From: Loganville, WI
Well it all started when the first altenator went out shortly after I got the truck. Since then I've gone through 3 other altenators 1 extra regulator and about 8 batterys, blew a couple apart and the others just refused to take a charge anymore. And the charging system has worked on and off the whole time I've owned it. I've had the truck about 2 years and put about 12000 miles on it as it is broken down most of the time. I was incorrect it does have the ammeter gauge not the idiot light, I get confused sometimes as I work on many vehicles.
The parts store said they plugged it all in and ran their machine on it and it tested good. I would assume they would say it is good if it is spun and produces any kind of voltage. That is why I suspect the voltage regulator again.
Maybe I'll take the dash apart and see if their is some kind of resistor or something that attached to the gauge or the wiring, I'm sure a part like that wouldn't be very expensive. I could run a power source to the gauge to see if it works at correctly.
The parts store said they plugged it all in and ran their machine on it and it tested good. I would assume they would say it is good if it is spun and produces any kind of voltage. That is why I suspect the voltage regulator again.
Maybe I'll take the dash apart and see if their is some kind of resistor or something that attached to the gauge or the wiring, I'm sure a part like that wouldn't be very expensive. I could run a power source to the gauge to see if it works at correctly.
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From: Cornfield in Nebr.
need to do a load test,start by checking the voltage of the battery,start engine up and turn lights and heater on and check to see if it reads more than what you started out,if not the alt.is bad or weak, by our books in 86 they had both internal and external but you said it was internal,should only take couple minutes for a ford alt to get to charging but 15 minutes is too long,my brother rebuilds them and is a wizard on elec.problems,
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From: Loganville, WI
ok with the battery fully charged it read about 12.5 volts without it running, with the truck on and everything turned up all the way it dropped to about 10.5 volts and slowly worked itself up to about 13 volts. With everything off and it running it slowly worked up to about 14 volts then goes down hill from there and slowly dies until it don't have enough power to run. If that makes any sense.