No Power at all....

[rottiedog]

When I was in the military and something broke, you always start troubleshooting the last thing you touched. In this case, it's the passenger side alternator.

It failed at work last week. I drove about 25 miles with it squelling and the gauge in the yellow zone.

Just got the alt rebuilt and installed. Turned the key, dask lights came on, normal buzzers buzzed, glow plug light went out, tured the key and click followed by darkness.

One side note: while hooking up the battery, I got a pretty good spark while conecting. Nothing was on in the truck. After verifying the connections after the no-start, I unhooked and reconnected battery. This time, no sparks.

THought that I might have hooked up something wrong. Checked batteries and alternator. All looks well. Have have 24 volts accross the terminal block. have juice on "some" of the circuit breakers.

Have the batteries charging right now. Maybe it's that simple....

Can the starter relay cause TOTAL loss of electrical power.

Not much info on this symptom in the -20 or the -34.

I wanted to drive the green monster tomorrow but don't think that's going to happen

 

[uscgmatt]

Was the isolated ground retained by whomever rebuilt the alternator? If not that would explain the spark on hook up.

Matt

 

[Crash_AF]

Did the rebuilder make sure that the ground was still isolated in the alternator when he rebuilt it?

That's all I can think of without seeing it.

Later,
Joe

 

[rottiedog]

Anyway to check that? We did talk about it and he did my other alt. He seems very familiar with them. He mentioned the ground before I did.

 

[uscgmatt]

Put a ohm meter between the negative stud and the case if the reading is low resistance the alt is not isolated. But this could also could happen from an alt that is bad. Hope this helps.

Matt

 

[rottiedog]

Could I have the alt hooked up wrong? I took picture and made note that orange wire goes on top. The TM has a red with white stripe and a suppressor going to the Neg. and a red going to the Pos.

Mine has a solid red going to both. The Pos has an additional orange wire (not in TM) going to it.

 

[Croatan_Kid]

If you took them down to Neuse Starter, that guy knows what he's doing.

 

[uscgmatt]

There should be 1 red wire on the + post along w/ an orange wire (fusible link) this is 24volt. The negative post has one red wire also, this is from the positive 12volt bus on the firewall. This is where the isolated ground is needed. If your alt is not isolated you will put 12volts to ground through this stud. The TM has a wiring diagram that shows all of this a little clearer.

Matt

 

[rottiedog]

There should be 1 red wire on the + post along w/ an orange wire (fusible link) this is 24volt. The negative post has one red wire also, this is from the positive 12volt bus on the firewall. This is where the isolated ground is needed. If your alt is not isolated you will put 12volts to ground through this stud. The TM has a wiring diagram that shows all of this a little clearer.

Matt

Just went out and checked the Neg to case and it was a dead short.

Next question: What did I possibly damage because of this????

 

[uscgmatt]

If you have no 12 volt items working, check your fusible link going to the 12 volt terminal block on the fire wall. You prolly want to have the alt tested to. Without actually looking at the truck that is the best responce I can give. Hopefully everything works out for you.

Matt

 

[rottiedog]

If you took them down to Neuse Starter, that guy knows what he's doing.

That's where I took it. I agree that he know his stuff. Called and left a message this morning and will bring the alt to him tonight.

 

[doghead]

Maybe John Winslow has alternators?

 

[rottiedog]

still broke

I had the batteries checked. Both good and almost new.

Swapped the alternators with each other for no real reason other than if the isolated ground was hooked up wrong by the rebuilder, it should have worked on the drivers side since that one is grounded anyway.

All I get is power until I turn the key ONCE, than nothing but darkness. Starter does get one brief bump before that darkness....

Still have to question the newly rebuilt alt since truck was working before that.

Question 1, with battery hooked up and alts unhooked, should I still get power to anything?? Since it isn't getting power with or without alternators and it does come back after awhile, sounds like a failed relay to me. Are there any relays that can kill everything? I started unhooking things on the wire block to see if any of them made a difference. Nothing yet.

Question 2, On page F-11 of the -20, what are the two tetris looking gizmos with 4 fires going to them? Firewall connectors? Circuit panel??

Question 3, on the drivers alt ground lug, there is a small guage wire plus the large ground wire. Is that small black/white supposed to be there? It's not in the -20?

Going back out....

Bonus question, I see something called "generator #2 relay". Assuming it is under the dash and that there is a #1 also, what do the relay??

 

[rottiedog]

When I hook up the charger, the lights work but I get a BAD noise coming from that area of the glowplug relay.

 

[Michael]

If you have power up to the point of bumping the starter, I would check the grounds and the connections at the batteries. If you had burned out the fuseable link, you would have no power at all.

 

[Michael]

Someone might have replaced the fuseable link with a circuit breaker? Time to get the TM and study appendix F.

 

[Michael]

Question 1, with battery hooked up and alts unhooked, should I still get power to anything??

yes
Since it isn't getting power with or without alternators and it does come back after awhile, sounds like a failed relay to me. Are there any relays that can kill everything? Not in stock form to the best of my memory

I started unhooking things on the wire block to see if any of them made a difference. Nothing yet.

Question 2, On page F-11 of the -20, what are the two tetris looking gizmos with 4 fires going to them? Firewall connectors? Circuit panel??

Question 3, on the drivers alt ground lug, there is a small guage wire plus the large ground wire. Is that small black/white supposed to be there? It's not in the -20? The extra wires are on the page with the diagnostic circuits

 

[rottiedog]

Something has to be shorted. The noise is coming from the glowplug relay. Noise sounds like a starter grinding. /bad noise!!

Going to unhook the newly rebuilt alt again and repeat.

 

[rottiedog]

Green monster is back to life.

Thanks for the help and the TM was actually correct. I went through the step a bnch mainly because there were only a few. The step for

Check voltage between positive and negative terminal boards where battery cables​

connect. Voltage should be 24.0.

read 24 volts until about an hour ago. That time, it read 12 than 24 than 12......

It ended up being the battery cable between the batteries. I need to replace all the cables but for tonight, I put new ends on because I had them already. FIRED RIGHT UP!!

Yahoo and thanks again to you all and the TM!

Driving it to work tomorrow. Hope for no new excitement