Regulator/Rectifier going back?

[cuban11182]

I'm having an intermittent issue that goes away when I turn the jeep off, and back on again. Before I start the jeep it shows 12.2-12.4 volts at the battery (after sitting). When I start it up, most of the time the gauge and the alternator puts out 14 volts. I made sure all the wire were good (my wiring is in very good shape). I did find some duct tape on one wire (pulled it off and used rubber isolation tape (don't remember right name) and electrical tape. I cleaned up all the connections with spray contact cleaner and put everything back together. Every once in a while it'll spike up to 14-18. I've verified this with a multimeter. If I turn the jeep off and on, it returns to normal. I talked with an electrician buddy and he agrees that the alternator regulator/rectifier is on its way out. This started happening after I changed the belt, but I didn't disconnect anything just swung it out of the way. (Belt tension is good too, about 1/2-3/4 movement).

Does anyone have any ideas what else it might be?

Here is a picture of the alternator in case anyone needed to see it.

 

[Torxhead]

I think that duct tape you removed was used to protect the distributor trigger wires from outside interference to the icm. They would be orange and purple in color. That spike sounds interesting. I would suggest a ground wire from the alternator housing to the battery negative and see how that works. Another thing you could do would be where that red wire comes out of that nylon plug on the alternator and run it to the battery side of the starter relay. This would be better for your charging system.

 

[cuban11182]

Sounds good. Will 16 gauge work?

The wires that were taped were the out signal from the alt to the start solenoid (both thicker red wires, Id guess 12 or 10 gauge). I think it was a half assed way to solder and cover it up.

 

[Torxhead]

16 gauge is fine, it is called the sense wire, I believe. Adding a fusible link or a fuse to it would make things safer also. I ran mine all the way to the hot line on the gas gauge, this gives me full battery voltage on the other side of the fuse box where the voltage can drop off as much as a volt.

 

[cuban11182]

I was talking with Painless performance today. They are creating a new harness for us that should be about in about a month. :drool::drool: I'm going to keep going with what I have now until it get released. Once it does, then I'll order it and install it. That should eliminate the issues. The only thing I am seeing is interference from the wiring. IE the turn signal seems to cause the gauges to jump in sequence to the timing of the signals.

Dumb question is there a location to mount the ground wire to, or should I just add it to the pivot bolt?

 

[IOPort51]

Hard to believe but the duct tape is factory issue. and that is about the only solder joint is the electrical system.

 

[cuban11182]

Well that's just crazy.

I went out to install my Team Rush Upgrade and noticed that the battery is now missing one of it's caps. Must have blown off during one of the 16V charging sessions. Guess I'm off to get a new battery tomorrow. I have the wire ready to ground tomorrow.

 

[superj]

I am almost done putting an ez-wire harness in my 75 and my buddy Jake has a painless Cj harness in his 84, if you ever want to compare them. The painless cost aaalllllloooottt more then the ez-wire and after seeing it, Jake said he would ha e gotten the ez-wire instead.

 

[cuban11182]

Well I went and met Jason and saw his plethora of Jeeps: CJ7 , YJ and TJ. I found that after replacing both he battery and the alternator my problem went away.