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New alternator - suddenly won't charge?


parasight

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I'm back. :p

 

I've just put in a new alternator, and hooked the car up to another to jump start it. It just goes click click click, about two or three clicks per second. The battery is dead, having sat for over two months.

 

These clicks are pretty strong, I can feel them shake the whole car, so I'm sure it isn't just the battery being low. Might be the starter acting up, but I wonder why it would just go like that.

Edited by parasight (see edit history)
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I'm back. :p

 

I've just put in a new alternator, and hooked the car up to another to jump start it. It just goes click click click, about two or three clicks per second. The battery is dead, having sat for over two months.

 

These clicks are pretty strong, I can feel them shake the whole car, so I'm sure it isn't just the battery being low. Might be the starter acting up, but I wonder why it would just go like that.

 

I've added a sound file of the clicks if that helps. They were recorded from inside the car, that's how loud they were.

Voice0004.aac.zip

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Thanks Gaz. Was trying to put a voice clip in, didn't mean to make a new thread.

 

Well if it's the battery, I'm still all right. Rather shell out for that than have to redo the starter.

 

I did jump it with a car that has a full up battery, and was idling so that it was charging off the alternator. Would it still not start then?

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Battery in my opinion, used to have a third car that rarely got used. I created my "Three stages of dead battery" theory...

 

#1 - Engine turns around 6 times before starting

#2 - Engine turns over, gradually getting slower and slower

#3 - clickclickclickclick

 

Give it a charge and go from there. If you're using a crap battery like Banner, get something decent like a Bosch S1/2/3/4/5

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My jump start, carry around slave battery is a Banner, and it's 15 years old and still going strong! Gets irregular charging, sometimes at a very high rate. Been allowed to go dead flat several times. Another Banner in my Volvo lasted 10 years.

 

Just my experience with them. Two cars, two Banner batteries, two lots of issues that were cured by buying different batteries. (Lucas and Motorcraft (Bosch))

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Right, got a battery from Halfords, the 005 that everyone uses. Car started just fine, voltmeter showed 14, idled it for a while, seemed fine.

 

Went for a short spin, came back and the voltmeter is now reading 12. Also, these telltale lights have come on. Any idea what's going on? :(

 

IMAG2426.jpg

 

IMAG2425.jpg

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Your battery should give around a steady 12.5v across the terminals with the engine switched off. If it doesn't then you have a battery problem. When the engine is running you should see a rise in the voltage across the battery terminals to around 14.5V. If you don't then the alternator is not charging the system so its either an alternator fault or a wiring fault.

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