Hello yotanation,


i have recently encountered a problem with a charging system on a 84 toyota pickup. when i bought the truck about 4 years ago i was told that the engine (22r) is out of a celica but no knowledge of what year or how many miles on it.

On 3/14/15 i went and some mudding and ran the ole girl pretty hard. at the end of the day my charge light came on with a solid light. come to find out my alt was bad so i wen to my local part store here in WA and got a replacement, tested good before i bought. put the new one on and no change. at this point and time i had no knowledge of the status of the wires/connectors. once I started checking the wires i found this plug pictured below that had shorts in the connection to the plug so i cut the plug out and connected the wires with butt connectors. after that the wire to the alternator was bad again so i fixed that out with a new connection.

after all that i went to the part store again about a week later. this whole time running on battery power and charge by a spare vehicle.
after i checked all the connections with a new regulator on the truck and then the representative told me my alternator was bad this time.

i have no clue what is going on and im in need of serious help. this is my DD and my only ride to work someone point me in the right direction

 

If indeed you have a 22r carburetor engine out of a Celica it would be a 1982 unless the manifold was changed who can tell.

If your plug was shorted then you have open fuses or melted wires have they been replaced??

I have never seen a plug cause a short unless it had physical damage.

Where they plug into the alternator they tend to corrode.

The alternator was removed for testing?? Or the charging system was tested on the vehicle.

I can only speak around here I have been told or seen Good Alternators test bad with nothing wrong when I checked them later.

Running the engine with a very discharged battery can fry the alternator battery charger is the only way to charge a depleted battery.

Time to invest in a multimeter and check things your self.

 

well the plug shown in the actual picture would not disconnect assuming that it melted together so i cut it out and re connected the wires that went into it.

I had the alternator tested before putting it on the truck and they told me it tested good.

so lets say i have fixed the connections and had just bought a brand new voltage regulator because there system check was telling me when they tested my system before my alt went out that the regulator was bad and put it on the truck and ran this last week on nothing but battery and getting charged from a spare vehicle that by doing this i could have damaged the system on the alternator?

i do have a multi meter but im very new at the wiring and electrical game so i barely know how to use it correctly and where and what numbers i am looking for.

any help??

 

Some parts stores testers are not the greatest. I prefer to have mine rebuilt at a shop that specializes in things like that. I have seen rebuilts from Mexico and they are terrible.

With the alternator in and idling you should have 13.?-14 volts. Just put a lead on each terminal. Depending on which meter you have, set it to 20 volts. I just switch between AC and DC settings.

You are right about the 84 having an external voltage regulator. Looking at your picture, to me, that looks like an alternator for an 85 or newer. My experience with the 84 and older alternator is it just looks different. It may be correct but just not what I am used to seeing.

 

this is a alternator that is 84 and older, alternators after 84 were a black plug that goes to the voltage regulator. the 84's were green. a week ago when i tested voltage form the alt it was only putting out 12.05 to regulator but the regulator wasnt opening to provide charge to battery. battery at that time was reading 10ish. which i already know is way too low. i know im supposed to be somewhere in between 12-14 when battery is fully charged.

 

If this helps any, I have a full-fielder for testing alternators. I copied the relevant pages for Toyota (external regulator type) alternator test. You don't need the test plug, you can use jumper wires as long as you use care not to short anything. Be vary careful doing this, it puts the alternator in full power mode and should only be done for a few seconds.

Before doing this test...
Check the big battery wire on the alternator. Do a voltage drop test from the battery (positive terminal) to the battery terminal on the alternator, it should be less than 0.02V. Less is better.

 

yes this does point me into the right direction of testing for some Q+A for here. will have to wait battery is currently on charger. you might have to be more specific on jumper wires and thing sof that nature. not mechanically inclined but smart enought to figure some ˟˟˟˟ out with some help. i definitely have plug 9 with an external regulator

 

The wire coming off the B terminal Alternator is known for just getting hard and brittle to the point it no longer conducts.

I have replaced all of them on any Toyota`s passing through my shop.

Might be as simple as a poor connection where you removed the plug.

Poor ground cables as well just poor connections.

 

i may have forgotten to mention that while all this was going on i did check my grounds. some where corroded and others needed replaced but after all that im still sitting at bad alt. i just pulled the plug form the alt to volt reg and tested with multimeter and the 3 colors for wires for the plug are green/yellow/white i believe. the only one giving me a reading was yellow at .56 ish. tested the thick white wire connected to the alt that runs separate from the other cluster and it gave me a reading of 9.56v so obviously it isn't putting out enough charge. but why isn't it opening the regulator to provide the charge to the battery??


if someone is willing to connect through the phone and walk me through testing this to find the problem i have free minutes and long distance minutes. i know its Easter and all but this is my dd and have been sorta stranded by my own inexperience with electrical workings lol

 

I recently just replaced all wiring connections for the charging system i.e alternator to regulator and ect.

today when i came home from work i tested my battery again for good measure to see what it was getting. the multimeter showed about 17.8 v which i know is too high for the system.

right after that i pulled the negative battery cable off to see if it would die and it didnt, it just idled very low. a few seconds after that i put the cable back on, let it sit running about a min and then pulled it off again this time the truck died and will not turn over. the started engages, all fuses are good, and full power to dash.

please help me! i just got this thing running again!

 

It is not really a good idea to pull battery cables off a running engine as you seem to have found out.

One was able to get away with it back in the days of simple ignitions in the early sixties.

Your job now is to hunt for open fuses possible bad relay or several and if your luck was really bad a fried ECU

Not only do you have the charging problem now you have a failure to start one as well

 

wyoming,

a 22r has a ECU? i checked all fuses under steering column and by the right fender well and nothing i could clearly see was blown. i only have 2 relays in the fuse box by the fender well and the are an emmissions relay and a "toyota" relay as labeled. if needed i can go take current pictures of how everything sits and post the pics for help?