dont forget to pull the pin on the granade

July 30, 2011, 09:33:14 AM

Been out of touch and catching up on threads.....here is one

My sons new 88bird was having trouble since day 1 of arrival with headlamps bing dim and also the illumination of the lighting was pulsing with a slight variation in relation to engine rpm. For the most part they were not bright.

I removed the belt then ran the engine and confirmed it was alternator related.
I took it to advance and napa, both said the alternator was good. It has a 3g so the cost of a new one was not in my sons budget.

Since both tests were incorrect, I decided the least cost would be to replace the brushes, well within the budget. There really is no way to tell if they are bad by doing electrical tests anyway so we took a shot in the dark on a 10 dollar part.
Took off the voltage requlator and the brushes were pretty much at 3/8'' long,,yep likely the problem.

Got the brush kit installed and problem solved!!!!

A few miles later,, like 150 or so, the car would not start and battery was dead.

Upon further examination of the crime scene, "someone" forgot to pull the pin on the brush kit.
Apparently the brushes were touching enough to generate power but the pin eventually stopped them.

All is well now, for the moment, thought I would share my epick phale story that could have ended up leaving my son stranded.