Hello,

1990 v6 4WD with replacement, non-OEMm, alternator.

Four or five years ago I had my alternator die on a lonely stretch of the Alaskan Highway. They only part available was a non-OEM, so went with that.

Lately I've noticed the Battery Indicator's needle is bouncing around instead of being steady. Its on the upper end of the scale. It doesn't always bounce but i have not been able to assign any relationship to its bouncing to any other thing.

I checked the belt, its fine.

Is this a sign of worse to come? Any idea on what could the cause?

Thanks.

 

Have you measured the voltage at the battery while at a high idle.

Could be a gauge going out

or the voltage regulator.

Or just a loose connection any place in the electrical system

Pretty much have to troubleshoot one thing at a time.

If it is the voltage regulator the worst that can really happen is you cook the battery it can get quite hot I have never had it happen but dirty oiled engine compartments could ignite or else it just fails and no output.

 

Check the voltage at the battery, pronto. Even without it getting hot enough to ignite something (!!), over-voltage will kill the battery pretty quickly.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalog...t?q=multimeter