(Solved) No charge, Chasing ghosts

[JacobDaniel]

Hi, 02 Explorer sport v6 208K.
Headed to the store and the truck just died going 55.
Towed it back, charged the batt, checked all the sensors (less the temp sensor).
It would start and just die as soon as I gave it a little gas.
Replaced the fuel filter (fixed that problem).

Now it will start and run fine, just wouldn't charge (12.2V and draining).
Pulled the alternator, ordered one online, went to pick it up and the guy said "we can test that before you buy a new one", I was shocked it passed.

Put the old alt back on and it worked for half a day. Now I am chasing ghosts for a day, then had the idea of tapping the alt, and it started working (I don't know how it passed their test only putting out 13.45V). Pulled the alt again, pulled the brushes, well the brushes and slip rings were shot.

Re-ordered the new alt, showed the same guy the brushes (he had no clue what he was looking at), installed the new alt and charges fine 14.54V.

Don't always think something is good if it test good at the time, especially when you did not run the test, when I read 13.45V with my meter, I knew it was going bad at least.

Thanks to this forum I now know allot more about the charging system, lol

 

[Maniak]

Hi, 02 Explorer sport v6 208K.
Headed to the store and the truck just died going 55.
Towed it back, charged the batt, checked all the sensors (less the temp sensor).
It would start and just die as soon as I gave it a little gas.
Replaced the fuel filter (fixed that problem).

Now it will start and run fine, just wouldn't charge (12.2V and draining).
Pulled the alternator, ordered one online, went to pick it up and the guy said "we can test that before you buy a new one", I was shocked it passed.

Put the old alt back on and it worked for half a day. Now I am chasing ghosts for a day, then had the idea of tapping the alt, and it started working (I don't know how it passed their test only putting out 13.45V). Pulled the alt again, pulled the brushes, well the brushes and slip rings were shot.

Re-ordered the new alt, showed the same guy the brushes (he had no clue what he was looking at), installed the new alt and charges fine 14.54V.

Don't always think something is good if it test good at the time, especially when you did not run the test, when I read 13.45V with my meter, I knew it was going bad at least.

Thanks to this forum I now know allot more about the charging system, lol

Good find.. Those intermittent things are the worse to track down.

We had a similar issue with the a/c. It would randomly turn off.. The only pattern was that it "seemed" to happen after stopping from high speeds (60 mph to stopped).. Turned out it was the air gap on the a/c clutch.. it was just far enough that stopping would make it turn off.. We too found it by hitting things Plus I felt better using a hammer on the compressor.

BTW.. Thanks for making me turn on my brain before I finished my first cup of cofee.. I had to figure out what your signature said.. Took me a while to convert the binary but I got it. Of course I had to find an ascii table to convert that to text.. Nice one Jacob...

 

[JacobDaniel]

Thanks.
BTW, I dide'nt really feel like hitting it, I felt like shooting it with my .45, lol

Yea, I like seeing how many people figure out what my sig says, lol