Hi Rick Ingram!!
On Sun, 1 Jun 1997 Mowog1@aol.com wrote:
> years old I chose to replace it anyway (K-Mart Exide Group 26..take off the
> At this point in time, I will be taking the alternator(s) in for
> testing....any input?!
K-Mart used to offer a free charging system check when you bought your
new battery from them. You DON'T have to remove anything from the car,
and it only takes a few minutes. It's actually a neat way to see how
your system is doing:
1 They hook up a volt meter to your alternator, or fuse box, and read
the static voltage (say 13.2 volts, engine not running)
2 They hook up a variable load to your alternator or positive battery
terminal, and set the load to zero ohms (no load from the tester)
3 the engine is started, and revved up to about 2,000 or 3,000 rpm, and
the voltage is noted (14+ volts is good... you're charging)
4 They start putting a load on the alternator with the "load machine",
and watching the voltage. (as the load increases, the voltage begins to
drop down)
5 When the voltage drops to the original static value, they read the
load in amps, and can tell you if you have a healthy diode bridge (the
most common fault in the BMC alternators)
Because your alternator is a 3 phase system, you can loose ONE diode and
still put out some current. If your alternator can produce 30 amps with
the diode bridge intact, you'd think that it would drop to 20 amps with
one diode out. For some reason, that doesn't happen; you end up getting
only about 15 amps. (at 3,000+ rpm) This shows up on the K-Mart test
TTUL8r, Kirk Cowen (who wanted to upgrade the diodes in the diode
bridge, so he installed a Nissan alternator)
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