New Alternator FRIED???

[bdunnam]

I just put a new delco remy alternator on my cj, and before i swapped i noticed that my volt guage would jump all over the place like it may start out fine and you could drive around for a week and it would never change but maybe the next day youd get in it and the guage would peg out as high as it would go, and then it may drop back down to 14 for a while, or it may drop to below 12, well it sat up for a week waiting on a new radiator and i got in it and it wouldnt get over 12v well i drove it around for the past 2 days and finally after coming home from workin on another truck i forgot to put another coat of varnish on my cupholders, well i tried to start it and nothing it would just barely turn the motor over. any ideas, im sending this alternator back but if theres anything in the jeep itself that could cause that to happen i would like to fix it before i destroy another alternator.

 

[gert]

Check your battery to see if you have a bad cell in it, It sounds like a bad regulator to me and The Delco were internally regulated from what I remember....I would take the alt and battery to your local parts store and have em check both it should be one or the other

 

[bdunnam]

it may be my battery i didnt think about it but i did melt one side of it where the power wire got so hot and melted in 2 it melted into the plastic but enough that acid came out but its also not over a year old and i wouldnt think that the regualtor in an alternator thats only been on a vehicle for 3 week would have gone bad already. and about checkin it there arent any stores that can really reliably check an alternator, but ill go check it out with a voltage meter and see if the thing is charging like it should

 

[IOPort51]

things like this go bad on the shelf, you may very well have a problem with the brushes. Chipped maybe or cracked. I like the regulator idea myself.