[beater wagon]

So my battery light comes on and the car dies. Towed to the local shop diagnosed with a bad alternator. Alternator swapped with a parts store remanufactured unit. 2 days later same thing again. Back to same shop another remanufactured alternator. Shop says pcm is bad. Towed home! Battery voltage is 12.6 with the engine off. Voltage at b+ is 12.6. Voltage at battery with engine running is 12.3 ,and dropping. Number one pin ohms is 2.05 with meter set at 20k. Found three pin connector cracked and grey wire stripped. What do you think...pcm or motorcraft alternator?

 

[Marde]

Alt pigtail connection problems are somewhat common.

Re-built, re-manufactured, new non-Ford branded alt failures are somewhat common.

PCM failures are very very rare.

 

[freemind]

^This

 

[amc49]

X3.............and welcome to the world of repeat alt failures from 'best of the best' alt makers who could care less if you know they build garbage or not. They think they are doing you a favor with the lifetime warranty, actually you just signed up for an advanced alternator changing class.

The warranty is actually a very cynical way of telling you they will give you 50 alts if you need them, and every last one will be substandard. Why the price went so high from the $30 alts of old, to justify more than one per customer. There really is no new technology in alts to justify the higher costs now. Thank your local one of the 'big 3' chains that have driven all decent part makers out of business and the way of the future coming up. Not very pretty at all. Most parts now cannot in any way be traced to who originally made them any more so no way to tell if the part is garbage or not. The big parts consortiums do not care about you at all other than as a resource to repeat drain of cash in any way they can including outright fraud, which is where alt replacement is at now. You can thank your stalwart right wing pro-business guys for that by gutting any chance of anyone official ever looking into the issue to do something about it.

 

[freemind]

^Hallelujah wurd to the mammy

 

[beater wagon]

Ok so I replaced the pigtail and repeated the alternator test...all was fine. Swapped the remanufactured alternator for a new ford alternator because I don't trust the remanufactured pos. Bench tested the remanufactured pos and it failed the resistance test. Ohms meter indicated an open circuit/over load. Going to try and get some money back from the garage that did the first alternator swap.

 

[amc49]

Uh, you pretty much can't have an overload with an open circuit as the open means no power can flow. Can't overload with no power...........overload by definition means too much power, the opposite of an open.

 

[dave89iroc]

He might have seen the "OL" displayed by the meter and thought overload, however, "OL" displayed on a DVOM stands for "out of limits", I.e., higher resistance than the meter can measure, an open circuit is infinite resistance, and least to 12v

 

[Marde]

Funny, for many many years I always thought OL = open line. Not sure where I picked that up. Blame it on the alcohol, or the two years I spent in a Turkish prison.

 

[freemind]

I miss that Turkish prison....................

 

[Marde]

I miss that Turkish prison....................

You must have been up North and got food on Friday right? Lucky bit*h!

 

[beater wagon]

Thank you Dave. My wording May have been incorrect, but my theory was sound. So the saga continues...drove the beater to work with zero problems. Stopped by the store on the way home. Upon start up the battery light comes on. When I Got home I remembered someone posted that the hatchback wiring harness can cause alternator and or pcm problems. A quick check of the harness,only about 100000 cracks in the insulation of the individual wires. I will repair the harness tomorrow. Hope I didn't blaze another alternator or my pcm.