I washed my engine the other day and now the battery light is on. There is a very bad smell coming up from the alternator and Im thinking it might be going bad but the car starts and runs fine. There is a whine coming from the alternator as well but thats been that way for like a month now. I should just replace it and be done with it.
Is it a hard job to replace your alternator? I have a 90 ls.
Thanks
Yes, the battery light indicates that there is a problem with your charging system. You may have short-circuited the alternator when you were hosing your engine with WATER 
Check with a voltmeter to see how bad the alternator is. Most likely, you have no choice but to replace it. I don’t know how long you’ve had the engine running with the battery light on, but I’d say I’ll give the battery 1 hour at highway speeds before it dies.
Regards,
Oz
P.S. If you are truly desperate, do an “Apollo 13” and shut things down (yes, including the headlights and gauge lights).
change it before you cant start yoru car one day
I been driving around with my battery light on for a week and its been coming on and off lately. today from an hour drive home… it almost died when i was paralelle parking… whew…so from now on… im carrying a portable battery jumper
i’ve been driving around with mine on for about 6 months, no problems either
alternator
yes, the alternator can be a pain to remove, but the easist way is to pull the driver side axle and then once the mounting bolts are removed the alternator will drop right out or you can fish it underneath the intake manifold and pull it out the other side but beware of hoses and the speedo cable. I’ve pulled it out several times in the process of getting it out this way.
Good luck!!!
I think what Im going to try is letting the car idle and unhooking the battery cable. It should in theory shut off if the alternator is not working right? I dont want to run my battery down if I dont have to.
Isnt doing the above going to kill the electronics? Like i thought that doing it in old cars were ok but wouldnt doing that with an ecu and stuff going to cause probs since theyre hooked upto the battery and the main fuses are connected to the positive post? U might be lucky and have no probs tho.
I wouldnt do that if I were you…too risky…you end up ****ing with the grounds and ****…no good. I bet 7 out of 10 times you get away with it…but you dont want to be in those unlucky 3. Set up a voltmeter…your car should run around 14 volts when on. the battery should be around 12.5 volts when the car is off. Turn on a bunch of your accessories to see if the voltage levels back off to 14 volts. I had the battery light problem last week…
I didnt want to screw around with the altenator. Thats one of the most frustrating things to go wrong while on the highway…trust me.
heres what I did…and I will let you know if it worked later tonight. took out the axle…dropped the altenator…its tricky at times because there isnt much room to get a ratchet in where the altenator tensioner is attached. Took the altenator apart…bought the brush kit for $5. Installed…if you dont think you can handle it…get a haynes manual…i am pretty sure they describe the whole process in there. My brushes were pretty much gone…the new ones were more than twice the length as the old ones.
I have yet to get the altenator back in yet…just taking a break right now for lunch, but I will let you know what happens later.
Scott
If you pull the battery cable off it’s going to kill the car no matter if the alternator is bad or not.
Well,
replacing the brushes worked…and it wasnt really that big a deal at all. I would say that most of our cars go 150,000 miles or so and parts start to wear down. When i sensed my altenator starting to go, I checked out some prices for new ones…200 bucks was about the cheapest I could find. Compare that with the $5 I spent on the brushes and the extra time I spent working on it, and I say I made out on the deal. If you plan on doing this…make sure you give yourself about a day to do this, unless you have a nice garage and plenty of tools to help you. As everyone has said…you need to take the driver side axle off to get at the altenator…that takes a little time even if you know what you are doing. Its not very difficult as long as you have a 1 1/4 socket and a breaker bar. A tuning fork type deal to remove the ball joint is nice too. Once you get the thing out, you need to do a little soldering to install the new brushes.
The risk of the job is that it may not be the brushes that are bad. However, before you go spending 100’s of dollars on new stuff…or even rebuilds, you might as well save yourself a little dough. Im in college, so i really cant afford not to try and fix everything myself…so far ive been able to conquer everything with a little patience and some research. If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask the board, since between everyone, we’ve seen anything that could go wrong with the teg.
Scott
Originally posted by Pele249er
Well,
replacing the brushes worked…and it wasnt really that big a deal at all.
Where did you get the brushes? Does Acura have an alternator rebuild kit?
Originally posted by 9integra2
Where did you get the brushes? Does Acura have an alternator rebuild kit?
NAPA auto parts… I know that most parts stores in my area dont carry this type of thing, but certain ones do. It wasnt a rebuild kit, either. Strictly brushes…2 tiny little contacts. I am willing to bet that Acura doesnt carry such a thing, but that they will try to sell you a $300 altenator altogether. You can also buy the voltage regulator seperately for about $80.
Scott
Scott,
I have tools and I think I can do the job but Im not sure about taking the axel off. I would like to give it a try but do you think I can muddle my way through it? Or is it something you should have experience with? I have a helms manual but I havent had time to investigate how difficult a job it will be. I have tomorrow off so I think I’m gonna give it a try.
By the way, I didnt try the battery disconnect thing cause I didnt have the time to work on it but it turns out that was probably a good thing. Thanks
Joe,
I re-read your first post and I dont want to steer you in the wrong direction. I had forgotten that you had shorted something accidentally, and i am not sure that replacing the brushes is going to fix whatever is wrong with your altenator. Your problem may lie in the voltage regulator, which is attached to out altenators. its the thing with the grey cover on it…you’ll see. This is still only $80 compared to the $200 that you would spend on a new altenator. I guess it wouldnt hurt to start with the $5 brushes, but it would suck to have wasted your time with all that to find out that your bearings are bad or something.
At the very least, you will need to replace your altenator which entails getting it out. To do this, you will need the 1 1/4 inch socket…for the wheel-nut (nut that is on the end of the axle). Use a breaker bar and probably some sort of extension…whatever you can come up with to give yourself more leverage. You need to loosen it while the car is on the ground and in gear…or park if you have an auto. Lift the car…take off the wheel, the wheel nut…and the castle nut on the bottom of the lower ball joint. If you have one of those tuning fork type looking things…if thats what its called anyway, you can use it to separate the lower ball joint…otherwise, you might be stuck using some other means of force (crowbar…brute strength, maybe) to separate it. Once you get that off you can swing the whole hub assembly toward the back of the car and pull the axle right out. Make sure you use a crowbar or something to pry the engine-side of the axle out of the half-shaft. Its out. Now you can play with the altenator. If you have a manual, all this stuff should be prettywell laid out in it. There is a tensioner bolt on the top of the altenator, and a swivel bolt on the bottom. In order to get the altenator out, however, you will need to the altenator mount out too (piece of iron held onto the block with 3 bolts that the altenator swivel bolt goes into). Once you get those two things unattached you can lower them out the bottom of the engine bay…right where your axle used to be.
I hope you dont have to spend the whole $200 on the altenator, but if you do, at least it wont be $500 or however much a garage would charge you to do the job.
Good luck, HTH
Scott
Ahhhhhhhhh! this stupid battery light is making me crazy, whenever its on, ill idle at 1100, and my motor sounds buzzy. I thought it could have been my new dc header installation or something because that was the most recent thing i did. So i resetted the ECU because thats the easiest thing. i followed teg tips and it was perfectly fine, no light or nothing and perfect idle. but then 10 minutes later the light comes on, my motor makes the wierd noise again, and the idle is back up to 1100, the light use to come on and off and now it just comes on and stays on. could it be the brushes? someone help me please!
I’d be willing to bet it was your altenator bearings…try getting close to the sound to locate where its coming from. If it sounds like its coming from the altenator its probably on its last legs. You can either send it to be rebuilt…probably cost you about 100 bucks, or buy a new one from your local parts store. This isnt something that you can fix yourself.
Scott
okay time to addto this… i was tryna fix the problem and i was gettin pissed off, so i just stepped on the gas real hard, and to my surprise it made the light go away… but of course it came back. so its the bearings most likely?