make sure that those plug terminals at the regulator are clean and making good contact with the regulator!
Bottom line is that you are never seeing any charging voltage such as 13.8 to 14.3 If your battery is always testing at 12 volts, I'd say it's getting some kind of charge at sometime, because by now, you would certainly be seeing a dead battery.
well heres the up date and my next list of problems. went down to advance and my buddy up there was just getting off and he said theres no way that this volt reg could be dead already. so he came over to my place and he looked over and saw that all my wires were right and we put the regulator back in and hooked it up and then went to go jump the battery ( cus it was dead) and was getting nothing at all. nothing on the gauge inside the car or an alt light or even a click of the starter. was getting volts at the battery from the jumper cables but thats it so figured it has to be ground issue with the battery cable so went and picked up a ground wire to go from the battery to the block and from the block to the firewall. and now i still get nothing i can now get the car running by jumping the battery now and then when i pull of the jumpers the motor dies....... so its getting worse and everything is replaced and is all grounded i even tested all the spots with a meter to make sure its grounding properly im confused as to what to do next and even my buddy. what is the next thing i can test to get my car to run again?
If you put a new ground cable on with no chassis ground that could be part of the problem now. Put at least a temporary ground from the neg battery terminal to the body/chassis. I also couldn't find the right ground cable with the tab for a chassis ground so I put a #10 wire from the neg battery post to the inner fender.
i do have a chassis ground sorry i left that out the clamp on the negative post of the battery has a 14gauge wire that comes off and i have bolted to the radiator support where the lights and the alt is grounded to
It's time to try another battery. The testers at the parts store are not trustworthy. Ask a friend to let you brorrow their battery to see if it charges to 13.8v
ok ill pull the battery out of the farm use truck tomorrow and see what happens i just went out and swapped the alt reg from the new one to the one i had in it before the new alternator and its still the same get nothing at all either by its self or hooked up to another car
i swapped out batteries and i can get the car started but the alt light is still on..... i checked the volts coming from the battery cable on the alternator and i get 12.3 and i checked the volts on the battery and its 12.3 nothing more checked it a couple times and thats all i get. its idleing in my garage but i should still see more volts than that right? and i guess the battery i had in the car before is dead??
Yes, you should see more volts. What you are describing is a bad alternator or regulator. Make sure the fusible links are not melted. You say that it is new so make them swap it for another alternator. I have notice some of the electronic regulators you need to rev the engine up to 3500 rpm to excite the regulator. Might wanna read over this and see if you are missing something. http://1bad6t.com/Maverick/repair/engine_repair_02.html
so i need to try reving the car over 3500? why is this? just asking cus i never take my engine over 3500 with it being the original motor and never having a rebuild just gaskets and it smokes on start up dont want to put it in harm you know and my battery is more than likely dead right since i can swap in another and get it started right? and looks like i need to swap out the alt and the reg again just to try it?
12.3 at the output of the alternator/voltage regulator with car running and then 12.3 at the battery with car not running says chargin system not working. You are only using that stored 12.3 voltage until the battery goes down enough to not start the car anymore.
Because cheap electronic regulators won't start to charge the battery unless they see a BIG spike. On a side note...I learned a long time ago that you get what you pay for. Cheap parts at Auto Zone and Advance Auto are cheap parts. I made a vow to myself that I will never buy anything made out of metal from a discount auto part store. I rather pay another dollar or two and save the trouble replacing the same part again next week or next month. I’m not saying everything the discount stores sell are cheap parts. Sometimes you luck up and get a good part. I have returned 4 fuel pumps and 3 regulators before I got one that worked. I buy most of my parts from Napa or Summit and never had to go back and replace the same part again for years. If you have to buy from a discount parts house ask for the top of the line part. For some reason the person at the counter wants to push the cheap parts…if the phone doesn’t ring first, then you have to wait on them to get off the phone…no matter how much money you have in your pocket.
ok well i just got back with new battery , alternator and reg. so how can i check to see if the regulator is letting the alt charge? just the wire that goes from the reg to the positive post on the starter solenoid??
My own check today. My Explorer was showing slightly low on the charging gauge today. I checked across the battery terminals, with the car shut off, and it read 12.1 volts - I started the car and it then read 13.5 so I'm not going to worry about right now. You should see some difference by doing the same thing on your Maverick.
