So on tuesday night, everything was working perfectly. Wednesday morning, I start her up and my cb won't turn on. I figured that a connection came loose, but couldn't find anything. Today I ran into several issues...

To start, the cb still isn't working. Then my "Rear Anti-Lock" Light comes on and whenever my blinkers are on, my radio turns on, then off, then on then off. I turned it off and started it up again, and everything seemed to be fine...keyword "seemed" I get on the freeway and everything seems to go. The "Rear Anti-Lock" light comes on, the radio goes with the blinkers and then the Tacometer goes. The lights start to dim. And when i say dim, i mean they were barely on. Then the car shuts off and i roll to a stop. The battery meter was barely on the scale. The emergency lights were barely visible.

I towed her home and it's been sitting for a couple hours. 5 mins ago, I tried starting her up and everything appears to be fine. (I haven't tried driving it yet cause it's too late to deal with problems)

Ok what happened here? Can batteries die mid-drive? Alternator Failure? Any help would be awesome!

 

Alternator failure most definetly, get a heavy duty one now as you may put lights and other cool gear on it.

 

loose cables, and definitely a bad ground (same loose cable maybe?).

 

great...well i guess that's a lot better than it thought but still gonna be a pain. So would you recommend i just got ahead and replace it?

 

Hadnt though of checking the cables, do that first and check it with a voltmeter too. But I think its FUBAR man, thats what usually happens after some time and the symptoms you describe.

 

i thought it might be a loose cable but i dunno where i'd start to look. I'm thinking it's the alternator. Denso alternator sound good? hopefully putting an alternator in is as easy as it looks.

 

I had a battery fail and it did just what you described. Truck died on me twice, after sitting a minute I re-started it and continued on. The third time it didn't start at all. Alternator was okay, just a bad battery. Check it out, it's a relatively cheap fix.

 

hmm well maybe i'll look into that but i don't think it's my battery. Now i'm thinking it was something stupid i did (ie a short somewhere as i'm trying to wire up some lights.) i've disconnected everything that i've done to the car and now i just want it to work. my alternators only putting out 11.4 volts out with it out which leads me to believe i'm running into an issue there. but the other weird thing is that even though i'm not running at the full voltage, i'm still not getting any reading from my tacometer. any ideas that can lead me in the right direction.

geez i hate it when i do stupid mistakes which might end up in a costly fix...especially electrical issues...

 

So you're saying that this happened AFTER you wired up some lights?

 

well they're not wire-up yet. i'm in the process of hooking them up. i found some new stuff out today but i'm going to start a new thread cause it has to deal with the alternator not charging the battery. But anyways, all the problems i was having before was because the system didn't have enough voltage to power the components.


check out this thread that i just started after figuring out what the problem really is now: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/show...5#post50385825

 

It's a short. Your alternator issues and other problems may be a separate issue, but are probably related to the short. If you turn on one thing (blinkers) and something else comes on (radio) it means you crossed some wires somewhere. If you were doing a wiring project when this happened, you already know where to look to fix it. Don't bother replacing your alternator or battery, you're just wasting your money.

 

so there's a short somewhere? I've already replace both (the battery was definitely dead after getting it tested, but the alternator wasn't tested) this would cause the alternator to not be putting out anything? check out my new thread

 

Yes. The battery was dead because you were running the vehicle off of it and not the alternator. It probably (possibly) would have come back if you just put a charge on it. If the alternator is not working, it most likely means you disconnected or shorted the output wire.

 

thanks a lot for the help. well i'll look into that tomorrow. boy i wish i had an ampmeter so i could make sure that the alternator's working properyly... if it is a short i sure hope it isn't a pain to find because i'm clueless on where to look. thx again!

 

well after replacing the battery and alternator yesterday and things still aren't working (ie the alternator isn't charging the battery), i took the new alternator in to make sure it was working. while i was there, i got my old alternator tested as well. turns out that the old alternator was good. guess that's sort of a good thing cause it saved me 170 bucks for now but i still have no idea what the problem is. I've ran over wires today looking for shorts etc just to make sure some freak thing didn't happen but didn't find anything.

I'm lost so i'm reluctanly taking it into the shop tomorrow. lemme know if you guys have any thoughts. gotta get this thing working by the end of the week for my 700 mile trip back to school.

 

If the alternator tested good then it is either one of the connections on the alternator or one of the main fuses.

 

thats wat i was thinking too but i checked every fuse i could think of and find and everything appears fine. just dropped it off at a well know toyota shop so hopefully they'll find a simple fix that won't cost a bunch.
man i hate electrical problems...

 

problems fixed. well i took her down to the shop yesterday and got the problem fixed. They said that there was an issue with the EFI circuit but that doesn't really make sense to me. How does the EFI circuit coincide with my alternator's operation? I called the mechanic today to see if he could explain the issue to me, but he was out sick today. I'm going to call him back a few days and see what i can get out of him, but for now all i know is she's working again and that's all the really matters for now.

Thanks again for all the help ppl.