Ws6, battery or alternator? Mechanics!
12-03-2014, 02:12 PM
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Ws6, battery or alternator? Mechanics! I wasn't getting any discussion in the actual firebird/trans am forum, so this is considered general ls discussion! 
ANYWAYS, Started up my 02 ws6 6 spd this morning, and let it warm up for 10 minutes before I went to gas station to head to school. (The car gets started up probably once a week.) I went to gas station, half mile away, and drove fine... but when I went towards the highway (60 mph in 6th), all of the idiot lights came on (abs, security, trac off, service engine soon, etc), volt gauge was reading in the orange! which is way below 13 but over 8... then my rpm and mph gauge went out, had no lights whatsoever on my gauge and I couldn't accelerate hard or it would chug, no electricity at all, except for a dim radio. my pop up headlights wouldn't even go back down, but the lights were off on them too.
So I turned around, limped back home in 4th to keep rpms higher due to thinking alternator was slowly going out......went back home to get my daily driver and parked the TA back in the garage and smelled a kind of gassy smell. no fresh gasoline...but some kind of fume.. as it sputtered in the garage..
Other info......a couple of weeks ago I had to replace the headlight motor which included me taking the battery out......misplaced the positive battery bolt
and now it has a longer bolt with 2 washers in between to keep connection in place...
Soooooo i've been thinking.....was that a bad way to rig up a positive lead from battery??
....bad battery since i rarely drive it??
....or bad alternator maybe?
but I cant seem to distinguish the smell...so maybe its just from running at low idle....
any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!
ANYWAYS, Started up my 02 ws6 6 spd this morning, and let it warm up for 10 minutes before I went to gas station to head to school. (The car gets started up probably once a week.) I went to gas station, half mile away, and drove fine... but when I went towards the highway (60 mph in 6th), all of the idiot lights came on (abs, security, trac off, service engine soon, etc), volt gauge was reading in the orange! which is way below 13 but over 8... then my rpm and mph gauge went out, had no lights whatsoever on my gauge and I couldn't accelerate hard or it would chug, no electricity at all, except for a dim radio. my pop up headlights wouldn't even go back down, but the lights were off on them too.
So I turned around, limped back home in 4th to keep rpms higher due to thinking alternator was slowly going out......went back home to get my daily driver and parked the TA back in the garage and smelled a kind of gassy smell. no fresh gasoline...but some kind of fume.. as it sputtered in the garage..
Other info......a couple of weeks ago I had to replace the headlight motor which included me taking the battery out......misplaced the positive battery bolt
and now it has a longer bolt with 2 washers in between to keep connection in place...Soooooo i've been thinking.....was that a bad way to rig up a positive lead from battery??
....bad battery since i rarely drive it??
....or bad alternator maybe?
but I cant seem to distinguish the smell...so maybe its just from running at low idle....
any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!
12-04-2014, 10:48 AM
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I started ws6 last night, and disconnected neg batt cable, and it died, so ill need to replace alternator like you said ^^ but will a burnt out alternator make that smell?
12-04-2014, 12:32 PM
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The gassy smell may be because the car was running on low voltage, maybe not getting complete combustion and running rich. Sounds like you were running on the remaining charge in the battery alone and you just barely made it home before the charge ran out.
Since you mentioned the longer bolt on the positive lead, be sure that this bolt cannot ground out on anything near it if the battery moves. If this bolt grounded out that may be the cause of your bad alternator.
Since you mentioned the longer bolt on the positive lead, be sure that this bolt cannot ground out on anything near it if the battery moves. If this bolt grounded out that may be the cause of your bad alternator.
