So I'm at my grandparents till monday for the holiday, and I need to diagnose their Cadillac.
In the morning it says no charge, and usually shows 11-12v. And then down the road some times the alternator will kick on and the volts will come up to 13.8-14.2. We took it to several places yesterday to test it, and after it turned on it was fine. And of course it turned on before we got to a place to test it.
Now this has the northstar engine (deathstar?) and I was reading on here the other day, the alternator gets cooked pretty easy.
So is this a cut and dry alt only problem, or is there another issue with these things that keeps them from charging?
~Alex
Bad cables and connections. Considering it's a 99, worth a look. Also ground strap connections.
Do you have access to another vehicle so you can take the COLD alternator out and have it tested sans vehicle?
Do they drive it much, or could this be crud acculumation in the alternator internals causing problems? Try blowing it out with compressed air. I know not much open, and not much time, and probably a bit cold, but, they're relying on you--let's just pour on the guilt....
Raze
Dork
12/24/10 1:55 p.m.
go to autozone/advance, have it tested on the car, alternators go bad on these because they're on the front side (literally toward front bumper) of the engine right next to the exhaust manifold behind the radiator, the spacing is stupid, getting it out is almost impossible w/o patience and small hands. I burned through 4 alternators in 6 years on my Eldorado, ran everything from brand new OEM to ACDelco, to reman Delco Remy, they all get fried, just a matter of time. Caddy experimented with water cooling them but just made a bigger mess due to coolant leaking onto the alt and frying it. Honestly chasing the charging issues on Cadillacs was one of the reason I ditched it, along with a headgasket/timesert job. I miss driving my perfectly running Eldo, I do not miss the in-between...
We went to tuffy (no testing, it was $20) autozone, and the small shop my grandpa usually uses.
It tested fine at AZ and the shop, but both seemed to use crappy simple testers. We didn't go to advance (my preferred parts store, esp in sanford,fl ) because I couldn't argue with my granpa enough.
I'm thinking the exciter is bad and when it gets warm/hot it kind of works. Makes sense since i guess they run really hot.
Yea there are 4 cars in the drive way right now, but my grandpa just bought a reman from autozone. Oh boy, I get to do it for a chirstmas present I think, I just hope it lasts for a while.
Triumph- its in florida so theres minimal rust/corrosion. I checked and they seem to be ok. I was mainly curious if there was another common problem for these pos......cars. It gets driven about once a day and my grandpa does drive really hard....so idk.
~Alex
