Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car (Read 3354 times) previous topic - next topic

Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

ok... the dumbass who had my car before me did something to the electrical system in my car. one of the origional symptoms was, if i turned the interior lights on, the dash lights would go out..., also the speedo needle would jump once in a while. and before i rewired all the speakers the rear 2 were hooked up, but did not work...  i have no god dam idea what the hell he did, but it is g me off, so far it killed my last 75amp alternator (brushes were fine, think voltage regulator), and my brand god dam new 130 amp (less than 8hrs old)...

symptoms:

with new alternator, starts and runs fine. as far as i can tell when i turn off, or do something with my head unit (because the $500 kenwood POS dosnt work rite... :mad: ) and after that, if i shut the car off. from that point on the car will not start, the battery will be almost compleatly dead if im lucky, crank slowly or click. (cant even turn on hazards, or turn signals) now... i can jump the car and it will start/run and rev. but as soon as its in gear it wount rev above 1500 rpm, after that it back fires bucks like a bitch and acts pissed off. another thing, i noticed my oil pressure gauge was showing up low, along with my speedo being +10-15 mph at all times, even at 0 mph. my headlighs were dim, and turn signals/hazards didnt work, or worked extreamly slowly. in a rage i ripped the head unit out of the console and threw it a good 75' into the woods along with part of my console. if i dont find out whats wrong soon, the rest of the car will follow...

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #1 –
WOAH.... hold on here Gonzo.....

The Speedo jumpimg is common with these cars, usually a bad connection on the dash plug. The dash lights going out well I'd bet on the light sw itself.

Have you checked to see if there is a drain on the batt with the ign sw off? Also how much drain there is when its on??? Had the battery checked to make sure it doesn't have a shorted cell??? If you have charged the battery fully(over night) and it won't crank a few minutes later it's bad... plain and simple. Anything that would kill a good fully charged batt in just a minute or two is gonna be making smoke.

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #2 –
Quote from: TurboCoupe50
Anything that would kill a good fully charged batt in just a minute or two is gonna be making smoke.


yeah,, thats what caught my attention,, there should be a puddle of melted plastic somewhere.

did you really do that to the head unit and your car? :giggle:
leme guess, your out of change today? :ies:

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #3 –
yes i realy did that to my radio, u dont want to see me when i get pissed...

anyway, that battery is good, runs long enough for me to drive it  about 2.5 miles on just the battery, holds a charge and their is no  parisidic drain.  infact its a optima red top less than a year old, maybe 8 months? the alternator isn't putting out any juice,  i didn't have my meter to conferm it worked when i got it, but i got the PaPerformance "alt dyno" sheat they gave me proveing it worked, pluss i ran the car for 20 minutes with high beams, fog lights, heater fan on max, under hood light, trunk light, interior lights all on, and it ran fine and didnt die so it must have charged because i could bairly drive 2 miles with my headlights on when my other cars alt took a dump. i did a test after charging the battery today and the alt isn't makeing any  power to charge, i charged the battery to 12.4 volts (10amp for maybe 45min to a hr), and started the car and  the volts started slowly dropping. i also did a case test, and i tested it to see if their was a break in the circuite but their wasn't. so... i'v come to the conclusion that the diode bridge is shot, within 8hrs no less... now i gotta find out how to fix the voltage regulator in a 3g, because im not to happy with the fact that my less than a week old 3g is broken. i refuse to shell out another  250. and now that the head unit is um... removed, hopefully that was cauzing the problem and it will not come up again.  any suggestions?

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Manson
any suggestions?


Yeah.. with a name like that, you really should think twice before talking about killing anything. :rollin:

Now back to your regularly-scheduled repair discussion.

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #5 –
well pa performance suggests i send the alt to my local store to have it tested, as if i cant test it, but anyway. they'll replace it free of charge probley for the cost of shipping. now to get a new head unit

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #6 –
well, yeah there are lots of suggestions but you really gotta get a cheapy ananlog meter.  I use to have onei got from sears for 12bux a few years ago but dad has it now cause i ended up with a Fluke digital meter. 

maybe it would be helpful to just post up what you did in your 3g alt conversion since it sounds like the problem started after that or am i wrong?

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #7 –
the problem started when my head unit started acting wacky, turning off randomly, resetting itself, shutting down ect... thats when the first alt died, think it was the diode bridge. then i used that as an excuse to get the new 130amp and soon after i was playing with my radio to get it to work after it started being retarded again, i started noticeing stuff that happened before, shut the car off and tryed to starte it again and it would just click. so some time when the radio was being retarded about a period of 15 minutes or so it killed the alt so it was running off the battery and by shutting the car off, it didnt have enough juice to start it again. at first it did the errr rrr rrr, then clicks...

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #8 –
Are you certain that the battery is good? Running a car 2.5 miles on the battery is not an indicator of a good battery. You should be able to drive it for 20-30 miles (if not more) on battery alone. You can do a very easy test to make sure the battery is good. Charge the battery overnight at a slow charge rate to make sure that it is 100% charged.You should remove the neg battery cable before charging it to eliminate the possibility of a parasitic drain. After charging the battery disable the fuel pump, then start the car and run it until it dies. Now, with a digital volt meter attached to the battery, crank the engine (the engine should be cold) for 15 seconds. During cranking the volt meter should not drop below 10 volts. If it does, the battery is bad. It does not have enough capacity in it.

If your battery turns out OK it might be the alt - in fact, even if the battery is bad the alt may be too. It does not take long for a bad battery to kill an alternator (and vice versa). If this is the case it's probably the regulator gone bad, which can be changed without even removing the alt from the car.
2015 Mustang GT Premium - 5.0, 6-speed, Guard Green - too much awesome for one car

1988 5.0 Thunderbird :birdsmily: SOLD SEPT 11 2010: TC front clip/hood ♣ Body & paint completed Oct 2007 ♣ 3.55 TC rear end and front brakes ♣ TC interior ♣ CHE rear control arms (adjustable lowers) ♣ 2001 Bullitt springs ♣ Energy suspension poly busings ♣ Kenne Brown subframe connectors ♣ CWE engine mounts ♣ Thundercat sequential turn signals ♣ Explorer overhead console (temp/compass display) ♣ 2.25" off-road dual exhaust ♣ T-5 transmission swap completed Jan 2009 ♣

Re: Pissed Off, Time To Kill Car

Reply #9 –
could be just the voltage regulator. they are separate from the alts in cougars (on my crummy 3.8 anyways), dunno about your 5.0. didnt know it myself at first but i had almost the same thing but with no head unit trouble. then again i was running the stock cassette deck and not a $500 probably 200 watt kenwood head :-p. Dunno if i sound stupid and what i said was obvious or whatever, but hope it helps.