Glad you made it to Jeff's ok. I told Tim about the problem. Maybe you can bring it buy sometime or something and he can look at it. At least give him a call this weekend. Today he's installing headers on Cody's car but tomorrow he'll be around to call. I hope you get it fixed.

 

In all these alternator swaps the one constant thing is the cap. Have you tried taking the cap out and using a regular voltmeter to check the alternator output?

 

have you tried to get a more exact reading? sometimes esp. on ls1 cars the gauges are little more than an idiot light and thus not helpful for exact voltage... try an autotap or tech2 and see what the exact voltage is. or if you have a multimeter, check the various points of the wire from alt. to bat, bat. to dist block/capacitor. etc... and see where the voltage drop is. i have a red top battery that i think is great but if there is a faulty wire here, that will only help for so long.

 

no i haven't but i did notice something odd the other day, sometimes when im driving my cap wont even have a voltage reading from the battery and when this happens my voltage gauge is usually near the red zone but then if i get on it suddenly my voltage gauge will go up and the cap will have a voltage reading so im thinking it may be my battery cable or something

 

i think i may have found the problem...my positive terminal is badly corroded, i didn't notice it the other day when i just glanced at it real quick but once i removed the cover from it i saw that it is in bad shape. So now my question is can i just replace the terminal or do i have to get a new battery cable?

 

try cleaning it first, baking soda with water will eat alot of the crap and use a wire brush

 

o ok i will try that first it is pretty bad though.

 

Replacement battery bolts are available from any parts store. If you can clean the ring on the cable end sufficiently then replacing the special bolts is generally easier than cleaning them.

 

well since i have a system i have the gm sidepost adaptor in place of the bolt and it is in great shape since i replaced that a few months ago...the ring however is horrible so i guess i will have to clean it and hopefully that is the problem

 

well i tried to clean it and it got some of the stuff off but the ring is so badly corroded that it didn't make a difference so now i have to buy a new cable and alternator wire and hopefully that will fix the problem.

 

Good luck with getting this fixed. I told Tim you might call. If you still need help feel free to call him. This weekend we're installing the cam and gauges in my car.

 

o ok i may be giving him a call but overall it doesn't look like that hard of a fix but then again i could be wrong

 

well i changed my battery cable today and it was a pain but afterwards my voltage was back to normal..thanks everyone for helping me out with suggestions

 

I know it's been a couple years but have you had any more problems? Mine is doing the same thing. I don't have any mods on my 2000 Trans Am nor a sound system. I am on my second alternator? I had the dealer replace the first one about a month ago so I'm going back to see if they will buy another new one for me.

-Mike