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Maxima alternator charge issues


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I just put a Maxima alternator into my 87 GL a few weeks ago. Everything worked as expected until a few days ago. Now when I start my car, the red lights on my dash stay on(charge, egr, etc) and my voltage looks to be reading just the battery. If I rev the engine to 4000, or accelerate hard, it seems to "catch" the alternator, and it begins to charge as normal. The volt meter jumps back to normal operating range and stays that way as long as the car is running. If I shut it off the process starts all over again. Any ideas? I did swap the single pulley to the double, will check tightness in the morning.

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As already said, check all of the wiring. Check it well. What is happening is the alt is not seeing it's "excitation" voltage (what tells it to start charging) until you give it the revs. So either there is a problem with the wire supplying excitation, or the alt is starting to let go internally.

Edited by SmashedGlass
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If possible. take a compressed air can/nozzle to the back of the alternator and give it a good shot. I've found there to be 1M times more brush dust on the reman Maxima alternators than I EVER had on my stock EA82 alts. I've found the brush dust (which is conductive, think graphite) will short out the diodes and/or VR and only allow the thing to put out ~11V or worse, start pushing AC voltage (not good)

 

I'd say it's the alternator.


Also, did you use the old single V-belt pulley on the new alternator? Did you file down the spacer to maintain proper pulley alignment?

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I don't think it's a reman. It's got numbers written on it with a paint pen like it was pulled off a parts car. But I'll try to blow it out tomorrow. I swapped back to my old alt for now.

 

And no I didn't file it down at all, could a slight misalignment be causing this intermittent issue though?

 

Yes the belts were tight.

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