Alternator Q's

[chadbuckner]

I was wheeling the other day and hit a few mud puddels only up to about half the tire and rim but threw mud and water everywhere. After that I had my battery and brake light come on and I noticed that my lights were dim and radio fuzzed I had my battery checked and it was real low! anyways I bought a new battery and drove on it for a day untill it died! (right after another wheeling trip) So I realized that it was my alternator. I replaced it and all is well now but.........the question I have is will I have to be carefull everytime I fly through a puddle of water, am I going to blow my alternator each time or was it just old and did the water take the last bit of life out of it? This is out of a 91 toy by the way. Any info on what I can do to prevent it from happening again?

 

[NoTrax]

Originally posted by chadbuckner
I was wheeling the other day and hit a few mud puddels only up to about half the tire and rim but threw mud and water everywhere. After that I had my battery and brake light come on and I noticed that my lights were dim and radio fuzzed I had my battery checked and it was real low! anyways I bought a new battery and drove on it for a day untill it died! (right after another wheeling trip) So I realized that it was my alternator. I replaced it and all is well now but.........the question I have is will I have to be carefull everytime I fly through a puddle of water, am I going to blow my alternator each time or was it just old and did the water take the last bit of life out of it? This is out of a 91 toy by the way. Any info on what I can do to prevent it from happening again?

Depends on your alternator, water exposure. Vibration and all that. Ive never had a alternator go bad from mud or water, what I do is just wash off the engine after wheeling. Make sure its clean and free of debris. if you leave the mud caked on or dont chec your connections after that.

If you wheel and your connections become loose or dirty your voltage regulator will tell the altrnator it needs more of a charge and that will overwork your alternator up to around 16 or 17 volts which will burn out most normal alternators.

 

[Caleb]

well water will kill your alternator but it takes more than just a splash from a puddle (unless like yours, it apparently was on its last leg) something to consider is that when you get it wet often your pulley will start to slip and so if you have a lot of elec stuff on you will drain your battery quicker then your alternator can charge it...if you do spray your motor off after wheelin I suggest avoiding the alt. I had something similar happen to me but I was out in the middle of the great salt lake...my lower radiator hose (alittle different than a car lower radiator hose) blew and water went eveywhere soaking both of my motors(salt water that is) and I thought I was in for it...it was super foggy(couldn;t see more than 1/16th of a mile) so I had to have my radar on so I would hit any other boats and I had to have my GPS on so I could tell where I was going and I had to ahve both my radios on so I could be in communication with everyone else...needless to say no matter what I did I was draining my batteries very quickly(I had four batteries on this boat and all were isolated so they wouldn;t drain each other)...I thought for sure my alts were toast cause they had just got soaked with salt water...the higher my RPMS got the lower my volts went...I stopped and took the belts off, dried all my pullies really well as a last attempt...I hooked up the battery jumper(cause my batts were too low to start two high horse power 502s) and got them started...to my surprise they started charging just fine...so moral of the story is dont go condeming to alts just cause they get wet...check it all out...

 

[SAMI]

alt blues for you too huh? i just upgraded my stock zuk one for a nice new 74 amp alt. from A&E. exactly two weeks today and for over a week now the batt light has been on. i drove down there to have them check it out, and apperently the batt term. in the alt got toasted. luckily it's still under warranty, what a pain in the @$$!!!!