dijlop

lol. for some reason my titles always sound a little dirty.

anyways, my check battery light came on today. i mudded yesterday and today. i was a little rough on my baby, but thats the way it likes it ya know... lol. anyways, between that and the steering wheel squeaking when i turn, im full of problems.

now, on the subject of the check battery light, what should i check?


quick side story about muddin. yesterday, i went with a friend in a '91 2wd carbed chevy s10, and it broke. totally died. however, we revived it after a broken tow strap and a little tug around. then today, im out with a sweet jacked up 4wd 4rnr, i believe a first gen, 35x15.5 swamper tsls, amazing runner, and a chevy blazer, little tiny thing it is, 4wd, 4.3L v6, and my '04 2wd taco prerunner. the chevy, it died. its still dead. im thinkin he hydrolocked it. checked out his intake, it was nasty. water and mud. not pretty. anyways, i think ive found a trend. toyotas get dirty and have fun and then walk it out. chevys get dirty, have fun, and then die.

yota tough.

gilby4runner

Alternator and mud dont mix well. That would be a place to start. Also check your battery terminals to make sure you didnt jar them loose.

ETRNL

hose off you alternator well. i like to soak the engine with mean green to get it back to being spiffy and a muddy outing
last time i went mudding i totaly killed my alternator but it had 150,000 miles on it so it was its time to pass.

dijlop

alright, well. heres the update. my babies just bout dead. its almost like the battery is dead, which i guess it may be if my alternator is done. if im hooked up to another cars battery with jumpers, everything is fine. as soon as i pull em off the radio turns off, all the power options start working in slow-mo, and i cant pull it out of park. so i have to stay hooked up and leave it in nuetral to start it.

however, i pulled the negative off of the battery for a couple of minutes and then tried it, and it started, ran fine, although it started hard, and then i turned it off. when i restarted, it was dead again, just like i had a dead battery. and OF COURSE, its raining like crazy so i cant rly work on it or provide muse more info.

any ideas? this is my dd'r and ive got class 2morrow. lol

fireteacher

deff your alt. either change the contact or buy a new one. same EXACTthing happened to me after a day of wheeling. bad thing was i was 200 miles from home! took me 3 batteries to get back. not cool

86tuning

get a voltmeter and check your battery voltage, then check your charging voltage. if your battery is dead, then you need to try charging it (overnite!) to try to recover it. otherwise you'll need a new one.

If your charge light is on, chances are your alternator brushes are fouled and that's why it's not charging. take the alternator out, take the rear cover off, take the brushes out (2 philips screws in the middle of the center of the back of the alternator) and check their length. Also check the copper slip rings on the alternator rotor. If the brushes are less than 1/4" long, get a new set of brushes. Clean up the slip rings with FINE sand paper, and re-install.

Proper charging voltage is 14.4v. Proper battery voltage (key out) is 12.8v

When you buy brushes, buy a brush set from any alternator shop that is pre-assembled so you don't have to solder the farking things together. Or buy it from Toyota for about $20.

You can also take your alternator to the same alternator shop for them to rebuild it for you, but that is gonna run $100-150.... but if the problem is the brushes you can fix it yourself for $20.