In reply to wae :
Thats fair, I got a great auto electric shop by our house, He does 2-3 for me a week.
In reply to wae :
Thats fair, I got a great auto electric shop by our house, He does 2-3 for me a week.
Your interior should be heading north march 29th
In reply to Professor_Brap :
Places like that are like gold when you can find them! I originally bought a new one because I didn't want to wait for them to turn mine around. That was back in, what, November? October? Yeah, sure hate waiting on a shop while I do absolutely nothing else anyway!
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Oh, awesome! Thanks! Just keep me in the loop on that we'll figure out the logistical details.
Interestingly, it appears that the alternator is likely not bad at all. It's not charging anything because the main cable is missing its ring connector that at one time was connected to the output of the alternator. When I tried to take the nut off the post, though, the whole post just spins. That wouldn't be a big problem if the whole thing would just unscrew and then I could just replace the terminal on the alternator. Except it's turning but not unthreading from the alternator, which is kind of weird.
First thought was to remove the alternator anyway and see if I can just fix that and then stick the new one on the shelf as a spare. Cramming this motor into the car has created some serviceability issues though -- I think getting the alt off a PT cruiser was actually easier! After a 20 minute fight, I was able to get it removed from its bracket, but of course there's no way to snake the alternator out of the car. It appears that I might be able to rotate it around the front of the engine if I pull the right side axle out. Before I do that, though, I'm going to see if I can get a better shot at pulling the terminal out and replacing it now that I can get to it at a different angle.
I did notice, though, that the power steering lines are banging around a bit and in danger of being pinched by the alternator if the motor rocks back more than a couple millimeters, so before I get it back on the road, I'm going to need to secure those a little better.
Edit: Where are my manners!? Current state picture:
No dice on getting the terminal out. It just spins the stud. I'll just take it down the road and have them give it a once over. Good news, though, was that I did not need to pull the axle. I removed the lower alternator bracket and then put a little droop into the suspension to get some clearance between the axle and the body.
I went ahead and put the new shiny one in and got it all tightened up. Later on I need to get a new terminal and then I can wire it back up.
I was telling a non-car friend about this adventure the other day and realized that I got use the phrase "it caught on fire" in a way that was much more nonchalant than most people would expect. Is it a good thing that having an active fire in or on the vehicle that I'm currently driving is just one of those things that doesn't phase me anymore?
Knowing that I needed good motivation to get things moving along, I took the Cortez approach. In this instance, though, I let my wife drive her car home while leaving me at the shop instead of setting fire to the Mazda5. There may be a lot of burning cars in my history but I'm trying not to light any of them on purpose. After she dropped me off, my only opportunity to get home was to fix the Neon or get an Uber so naturally I had a couple beers and played around with some cosplay projects and tested out some LED lights we got for the shop. After delaying the inevitable, I went ahead and put a new terminal on the alternator connection and swapped the tires. There's no voltmeter in the car, so I have no idea if it was charging or not. Luckily, I had a spare battery and some jumper cables so if the headlights ran the battery down, I'd have a backup option.
I really forgot how much I love driving this thing. That's probably what I've said in this thread every single time it's taken me a while to get a project on it completed, but it is such a freaking beast. My drive from the shop to home is about 3 miles on 20-30 mph roads, then 2.5 miles on 45mph roads, and then a half mile through my subdivisions 25mph zone, so there wasn't really any chance to open it up. Once I got to the first bit of 45mph zone, I did let the turbo spool up until it indicated about 20psi of boost (!) so I know that's working. About 5/8ths of the way home, I stopped at a light and noticed some smoke coming from under the hood. Occasionally it will spit a little bit of oil from... somewhere under heavy boost so I was assuming that's what I was seeing and didn't think much of it. Obviously, having just messed with the charging system, the thought that it could be electrical did enter my mind, but it didn't smell like an electrical burn. It didn't really smell like oil, either, so my spidey senses were a-tingling, but it was late and dark so I figured my best shot was just to get the thing home as quickly as I could.
Once I parked the car and shut it off, I jumped out and looked around the neighborhood to see if I could find the folks that were having a bonfire in their backyard. I didn't notice a bunch of cars so I guess it wasn't a big party, but I definitely was smelling a little campfire action. As I came around the front of the car, I saw some little bit of flame coming out from under the hood, though, so I went ahead and got the pins out and the hood off. Turns out the guy having the bonfire was me! A big pile of leaves had acccumulated on the exhaust manifold and that's what was burning -- which explains why it didn't smell like oil or electric. Putting that out was pretty easy and there wasn't any damage done. My next trick is to hook up the laptop and check TunerStudio to see if the charging system is working. If it is, then I'm going to have to get the cluster soldered up next. Not having a speedometer makes street driving a bit challenging.
I can attest from personal experience that having a working speedometer is a game changer. So is carpet.
"Oh, it caught fire again. I'm kinda busy, could you get that for me?"
Hmm. Well, no more fire -- which is firmly in the camp of Good Things -- but also no charging the battery either. Tonight is putting a new power steering belt on the $1,200 Miata, but I need to check my voltage regulator setup next.
Since the first cancellation of the season is coming up this weekend, things need to sort of get into gear on this...
Two new mud tires have been acquired. Formerly seen gracing Tim's blue Neon, these monsters should be a nice addition to the front-end. I suppose it would be much more interesting if I had pictures to show, but I'll have to get those later.
Stuffed under the bed and in the basement storage on the RV still is most of a 2 door Neon interior. I need to source a carpet and headliner separately and then figure out how to mount the window nets around the door panels, but it will be kind of nice to be able to drive around town in a little bit more comfort.
Using a resistance check, I tested the voltage regulator last night and it tested "bad" according to a video I found on the internet. I ran out to Advance and got a new one with a lifetime warranty but didn't have time to put it in before the rain started. This morning, right before it started raining again, I got back out there and gave it a try. The new one tests out the same as the old one, but when I hook it up I'm charging the battery, so whatever, I'm calling it a win.
In the process of fixing that, though, I did manage to break the interior door handle linkage, so that's something that will need to be addressed. I also need to more securely mount the power steering lines between the firewall and the engine, change the oil, and swap tires. That should have me ready for the weekend, then! Oh, that and I think I need a slightly deeper drop on the tongue for the B.U.T.T. in order to keep the trailer leveled out.
wae said:I need a slightly deeper drop on the tongue for the B.U.T.T.
wae said:Since the first cancellation of the season is coming up this weekend...
]
And cancellation number 1 of the year has arrived!
I guess that gives me time to at least get the door handle fixed.
Last night I was out driving around in the pouring rain and I couldn't see a thing. There were a few things going on, but there has got to be something wrong with the headlights. The defroster doesn't seem to be pushing any air towards the driver's side of the car, which was a contributor to the problem as well, but even with the brights on, there were plenty of times I couldn't see the road.
After putting in the voltage regulator, I was seeing 14V. I need to go check again to see if it's stopped charging again or if somehow when the lights, wipers, fans, and blower are all going it pulls more than the system can generate for some reason.
The stock lights in these are WORSE than a the road seeing light of zippo from tge back seat.
Edit: let me try that sober...
The stock headlights in these cars are worse at seeing the road than a Zippo from the backseat would be.
In reply to wae :
I haven't even seen the cancellation yet, but then again I never registered... Doing 501st stuff this weekend at Gem City Comic Expo. Come to Dayton and shoot a stormtrooper for a charitable donation. I can take it.
Dayton Cars And Coffee is also this weekend. I’d go, but need to be around home at 9 AM.
In reply to wae :
What event is cancelled? The ross county fairgrounds rallycross?
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
I'm pretty sure you want me to replace the headlights by putting a hippo in the back seat of the car. I'll give it a try, but I'm not sure how that's going to work.
Technically speaking the event at Ross County fairgrounds wasn't canceled, just postponed. But net effect is still no rallycross tomorrow.
Since soccer was also canceled for tomorrow, I may try to spend some time doing some things around the house to make the woman happy and then maybe try to tackle some other small projects.
In reply to wae :
Thanks! I didn't know. That woulda sucked if I showed up!
rustybuckets said:In reply to wae :
Thanks! I didn't know. That woulda sucked if I showed up!
Yeah I just saw the post and shared it on our Facebook group at least. If you were registered you should get an email.
Well this is frustrating: I haven't had time to do anything with the car but I hooked up my laptop to megasquirt yesterday and was going to run a quick errand. Battery voltage is only 10.something with the engine running so it still isn't charging. Looks like I'll have to make some time for that this week. It's a stupid simple system so unless the new alternator is defective, I'm not really sure what the problem could be. I do suspect that when the positive wire came off the old alternator it banged around and probably shorted to ground one or two times, but my multimeter was showing good voltage before...
I took a trip to Lowes (since The Hammer Store closes at 8pm) and actually paid money for a multimeter. The H-F freebies that I've been using seem a little unreliable and the probes are always breaking on me. With that in hand, I tested the battery with the car off and it was showing high 11.something volts. I got the car started and with the brights, cooling fan, HVAC fan, and windshield wipers on the volts dropped down to somewhere in the 8s. Definitely not charging.
This system is stupid simple: +12V when the ignition is in run feeds into the center pin on the external voltage regulator. Voltage reg gets ground from being bolted to the car. Output from the voltage regulator comes from the other pin and goes to one pin on the alternator plug. The second pin on the alt plug goes to ground. Output from the alternator goes to the starter and the terminal on the PDC under the hood and from there back to the battery in the trunk.
So far, I have determined that there is power from the ignition circuit to the voltage regulator.
Next troubleshooting step is to verify continuity on the two pins of the alt plug - one should go to ground, the other should go to the not-middle pin on the voltage reg connector.
If the wiring harness is intact, I'll unplug the conntector from the voltage reg and feed +12 down the not-middle pin to the alternator which should tell it to go for maximum charge. If system voltage on my multimeter shows >12 at that point, my alternator is good and the regulator is bad. If the voltage does not increase, then the new alternator is crap.
There really isn't anything more to the system than that, so that should tell me exactly what part of the system needs to be replaced.
Correction: None of those go to ground. Constant +12V from the ASD relay and then the +12V signal from the voltage reg. But I did confirm that the harness is good, no drop, low resistance. I pushed +12V down the signal line while measuring the voltage output from the stud on the alternator itself (to rule out the fusible link) and still no charging. I may be missing something but that means the new alternator is no good (which isn't a huge shock, I suppose, even though it really should be). Next step is to go pull the alternator off the car and take it to have it tested.
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