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I did search, but could not find quite what I was looking for. I ran into a little issue with my 964. I recently had her up at Watkins Glen for 2 perfect days of fun. The car was perfect all weekend. However, I had a problem when driving home after Sunday's activities. Essentially, the battery died while driving. The battery does not appear to be charging. Here are to details I have gathered:
1) A few times over the weekend, the red voltage light would glow dimly when starting-up the car after sitting for an hour or 2. Once the throttle was blipped, the light would go out and stay out.
2) The Check Engine light will come-on, followed shortly by the ABS light, just before the vehicle losed power due to low voltage.
3) The low voltage light does not illuminate when the battery loses voltage and the vehicle stalls/shuts-down.
4) The low voltage light does illuminate brightly when turning key to position 1, along with all other waning lights,
5) There may have been an instance or 2 where the low voltage light did not illuminate when turning key to position 1, but the light does seem to illuminate brightly every time,
6) The clock is functioning perfectly well.
7) The battery reads 12V at the posts, even if revving the engine to 5-6K rpms
I would allume the alternator, but the fact that the low voltage light did not come-on as-designed makes me think connector/wiring issue. Anyone have any suggestions as to where the testing/diagnosis should begin?
You should have 13.8-14.0 volts just above idle. I would double check your ground straps and that your belts are not loose. But my guess is you need a new alternator.
Solder joints on the back of the Clock, The Clock will still work but will prevent the alternator from charging.
I had a problem of the alternator not charging until the revs raised above about 3000rpm, re soldered clock circuit fixed it.
Solder joints on the back of the Clock, The Clock will still work but will prevent the alternator from charging.
I had a problem of the alternator not charging until the revs raised above about 3000rpm, re soldered clock circuit fixed it.
Could be a combination of problems...
I had something similar a while ago but it compounded...
When I bought my car, I had same issue.. start car, abs light would be on... but when it revved to over 3000, it went out. At night, when I had the lights on, it was clear to see my alternator was not charging as the lights were very dim, then hit 3000 and they light up bright.
Problem is that the car was also draining the batt when not running. This could be due to lots of things (alarm, radio green wire, door plunger switch etc)
But what it was doing, was killing the battery all the time.. when they get very low on voltage, they dont respond well to charging... they will charge and give a reading of 12.5 volts or whatever, but the capacity is around half... so i would only get 2 starts out of it, before it was toast.
I did the clock soldering job and removed the bulb from the convertible section; I read somewhere it drains power.. in fact I removed bulbs from CAT as well, just for good measure.
All I did for the soldering, was to freshen up the joints at the base of each of the large connector pins.
To the naked eye, they looked fine.. but I did it anyway.
Now, my car doesnt have excessive current drain, and the alternator is charging as soon as the car is running.
I got a new battery to replace the one that had been worn down, and 2 months later, everything is still strong.
When my 1990 C2 gradually died on the road with no indication of any problem it turned out to be worn out brushes on the alternator's voltage regulator. With the brushes not making good contact, the battery slowly died . This was announced by the gradual failure of every system in the car: the radio, then A/C, ABS, then the engine.
The good news is, if this turns out to be your problem, regulators are pretty cheap. Just lots of elbow grease to re & re the alternator.
Well, I was able to spend some time with the car today. I pulled the clock a re-soldered all the pins. Well, that didn't fix the no-charging issue. And now my clock doesn't work. Ugh. I had soldered the 3 pins together and 2 of the back-side of the pins were soldered together. I re-did everything much better and cleaner, but the clock still doesn't work. I may have to send-out for repair.
Anyway, I pressed-on hoping to find another issue. I pulled the fan/alternator assembly to inspect. All grounds were good and connections solid/tight. I pulled out the voltage regulator and found one of the brushes stuck.
I replaced the regulator and put everything back together. Sure enough, the low voltage light is bright in key position 1. Fired her up, light went out, and 13.5V across the battery posts!
$20 fix and she's back on the road. Thanks for the tips, gents.
05-04-2015, 01:10 PM
1991 C2 Not Charging Battery
