[11acb]

hi guys,
im in Brisbane southside and need my altinator repaired can anyone recommend anyone??
was out last weekend and was winching a fair bit and my car stalled flat battery I jump started it but the altinator will not charge the battery
the car only done 27000 ks so was hoping to repair rather than replace if it was a lot older I would probably replace it
please any help would be great
as I have 2 cars and they are now both not going, jimny no altinator, and patrol no clutch sux I have to do the patrol clutch but delaying playing with the 200+ kg gear box and t/c so fixing the little jimny has become priority as I need to get to work

[jimny_timmy]

Warranty...

[Scales]

thats a bugger dude.
if its just the regulator (probably is, have you tested with a multimeter yet?) you might be able to do it yourself fairly easy. Ive done all my old cars in the past without drama (havent done jim yet).

Just ring AEC (or similar) and get a price on the regulator for it, it is usually just a case of unbolt and swap the reg/brushpack assy and away you go, my excel one cost about 70 bucks from memory, falcon was about 50.

but as I say, havent done one yet on Jim.

best i can do Ando, good luck with it.




@timmy, you havent seen his rig have ya lol... they probably wont touch it.

[jimny_timmy]

Mine had more done to it when they replaced mine (I drowned it).

There is nothing in what he has done that could affect the starter motor... Therefore they HAVE! To fix it

[Scales]

yeah no arguments from me dude I know. Whether they come through or not is another thing.



alternator btw, not starter.

[jimny_timmy]

Scales wrote:

yeah no arguments from me dude I know. Whether they come through or not is another thing.



alternator btw, not starter.

Shhhh.... Close enough lol

[Blakey]

just put a larger alternator in

[Scales]

think he is kinda in a hurry. messing around with an upgrade while trying to get back to work might take a bit longer.
regulator change will take you like half an hour.

you could change the bearings in there too but thats a fair bit more stuffing around and with that low kms I personally wouldnt bother.

[11acb]

I am pretty sure I need a second opinion, my wife took the alternator in to local auto elec today he said "the alternator is fine" apart from the "alternator not working"" he thinks he needs to see the whole car cause this alternator don't have a regulator. he says it must be something else on the car.... sounds a bit bogus to me......


and 'Blakey' I would like to do upgrade but a bit scared of the wireing up part don't want to fry computer, I do have a el falcon alternator in the shed

do you think he could be legit? I think I should go see someone else get a few opinions

[Scales]

Thats bullshit dude. pure and simple.

you take car in and he'll come up with some bullshit and charge you a fortune and just swaps out a 50 dollar regulator..

replace reg yourself, see that it works then name and shame the prick on here.

[Mike57]

Any auto elec should be able to put the alternator on his test bench, spin it up and test it. At least that was the way it worked in the old days. I agree with Scales, take it to someone else. They should be able to test it for free.

[Scales]

I just remembered I had a alternator rebuild about 8 or 9 years back. When I didnt really know shit about this sort of thing, It only cost me about 100 bucks and that was a full strip down, bearing replacement, and regulator/brush (its a single unit on the alternator) replacement.

OH yeah, i forgot, it also could be the rectifier pack. but thats just as easy to swap and test too. its onboard the alt with the regulator.

When I Got it back it was ultrasonically cleaned so looked like new. Even with todays ripoff prices I cant see it costing more than 200 for someone to do it.



still say you should attempt it though it is so ridiculously easy you'd kick yourself.

this is straight out of the manual:

The generator features are as follows:
• Solid state regulator is mounted inside the generator.
• All regulator components are enclosed into a solid mold.
• This unit along with the brush holder assembly is attached to the rear housing.
• The IC regulator uses integrated circuits and controls the voltage produced by the generator, and the voltage
setting cannot be adjusted.
• The generator rotor bearings contain enough grease to eliminate the need for periodic lubrication. Two
brushes carry current through the two slip rings to the field coil mounted on the rotor, and under normal conditions
will provide long period of attention-free service.
• The stator windings are assembled on the inside of a laminated core that forms part of the generator frame.
• A condenser mounted in the rear housing suppresses radio noise.

Unfortunatley theres no good pictures to go with it, but in my experience it really is just a matter of unbolting the cover, pull the reg out and put a new one in.
you can test the rectifier with a multimeter in about 2 seconds, i can elaborate on that if you need to. regulator isnt as easy to test, but if your rectifier is fine, it has to be the regulator.

and if its NEITHER of these things (unlikely), than one of the stator or rotor coils is fucked.... and its new alt time.

[11acb]

do you think it could be some sort of fusible link? or master fuse? apparently there a 80 - 100 amp master fuse....
this has really confused me I was hoping it would be a simple problem to fix,
apparently 2010 the alternator changed from a regulator type to some computer controlled thing, I guess I put the car back together and drive it in to a few diferant auto elecs, just be nice if I new of some that had actually worked on the jimny, rather than forking out an hourly rate for someone to try a few things and guess. for god sake I can do that at home (for less hourly rate too)

[11acb]

still got no car resorted to borrowing my sisters golf lol I really need to sort this stupid zook

can anyone recommend a auto elec with jimny experience???

I wonder if I drive it into Suzuki will they even look at it under warranty, with the winch on the front, 3 " lift and 30"tyres

[royce]

There are some tests you can do first and if you put some actual information in here somebody might be able to help, rather than what you are getting now

first up, with everything off, see if you have battery voltage at the fat charge wire on the alternator, if not then there is likely a blown fusible link, arent there some of them in the positive battery terminal?

If youve got power there, have a look at the thin wires, if you have a red/white and a black/white then that's the standard voltage sense and warning light colours for Suzuki, with a digital multimeter check that the black/white one has battery voltage on it with the ignition on, if not go look at fuses.

If they are different colours then don't touch them, without accurate information on how it works then we are just mucking around and likely to damage something.

Suzuki obviously will have the information, whether they warranty it or not doesn't matter, youve still gotta fix it and its not like anyone here has any idea.

[11acb]

the 80 amp fuse on the positive terminal appears to be not blown nor do any of the fuses

my multimeter appears to be not working as I never use it much. I will go buy another one and see if I get a reading and let you know

however I used my test light and put that on the fat charge wire on the alternator and the test light lights up, I also put the test light on the thin black and white wire with the ignition on and get the light on the test light.

im going to town now and getting oil etc for the patrol I will pick up a multimeter while im there and test with that when I get home and let you know what it reads

also the auto elec my wife went to told her that the winching would not of affected it it would of been the jump starting of the diesel triton not saying he not right im just passing on the info that I know

also my mate took the positive lead off the battery while the car was running after we charged the battery he said that will test if the alternator is working, if the car stops the alternator not working if the car keeps running the alternator is fine, we did this test and the car stopped after a couple of seconds at idle speeds we did the test again and found if the we held the revs at about 3000 rpm or more the car would stay running with lights on and off some would say ran fine no sign of stopping, we concluded maybe the alternator was working at less than half ability,
so I drove the to work that night and kept revs up a little higher than I normally would when driving, seemed to be fine BUT than on my way home in the dark with lights on driving at higher revs etc. got about 30 mins home and noticed my lights dimming (which is notacible as a bought a upgraded light loom for the jimny from this site) and before too long ABS light come on the dash followed shortly by the BATTERY light and the car began to shut down ie loose power as I guess the fuel pump etc loosing power so I turned the lights off kept revs up in lower gear and drove home in the dark (very dangerous and hard to do in the country with no street lights, don't recommend it)
got the car home pulled the alternator out gave it to my wife to take to auto elec thinking it would be sorted nice and simply (not so much)

as here I am now confused, a little frustrated

thank you to any one that has any help advice or recommend the right place to go as this is all over my head now, I know enough about cars and how to fit and replace parts but electricity car or house definatley not my area

cheers ANDY

[royce]

running an engine with no battery hooked up is really really bad, I wish people would stop saying its how to test them

put the alternator back in, charge the battery up with a battery charger and start it up and test the voltage, you want more than 14v at about 2000rpm, ideally it should stay above this with the low beam on as well

its possible you've buggered the battery and not the alternator, unfortunately just picking random bits as faulty isnt the best way to work these things out

[JrZook]

royce wrote:

running an engine with no battery hooked up is really really bad, I wish people would stop saying its how to test them

Yep! Good way of potentially destroying everything electrical in the whole vehicle....

[11acb]

sorry guys, but how would I know if I done more damage by running with out the battery hooked up?

I didn't get a chance to get the multimeter hopefully today, If I get this back together and the alternator isn't charging at 14v around 2000rpm, is it likely to be alternator? what else could it be? or than time to to drive it into auto elec/Suzuki dealer

cheers Andy

[Scales]

yes very likely Andy.

I just went through all the service manuals I have for the Jimny, and they all reflect what I was saying, ON BOARD regulator... no variable field from car harness malarky.

While you have the alternator off, do you have a part number on there mate? can you tell me any/all information that is on there... I can find out exactly the part you need from that.

These are from the zook manual, you can see the onboard rectifier diodes and regulator IC clearly. There is nothing else in the circuit No crazy ecu inputs etc..... it puts out 14 regulated volts or it doesnt....

If you are not getting 14v, you can take the alternator back cover off and test the diodes with the multimeter easily (I can take you through that). If they are okay, then you need to buy a regulator. Which as ive said a couple of times is just a bolt-out-bolt-in job.

[11acb]

cheers scales,
the only numbers on the alternator are:
denso 80G0
31400-80G1 0
10 22 11 - 2 6 0 0
7 B
12V

[11acb]

mate ill get some pictures of it too
probs be late tomorrow though
cheers for your help guys

[Scales]

no worries mate, Ill do some research on that model today and ring around to see what I can find for ya. Not much else to do at work atm

[Scales]

Just did a bit of a ring-around, had no luck sourcing a reg because they couldnt ID it. They (ashdown-ingram) suggested to pull the cover off and get the number off the reg itself.
So try that, and give ashdowns a ring. Or even take it directly to them and ask for a regulator would be better.

[11acb]

so a update on this one, I ended up fixing it, well its ended up working again... I pulled the whole thing apart cleaned it and put it back together in the process I managed to blow the master fuse (don't ask stupid amature mistake) so got it replaced and re installed the alternator checked everything with a multimeter and is all working fine... don't know how or what was to blame but its working and has been for a couple of weeks pretty happy

[11acb]

a big thanks to mr scales for his efforts and everyone that offered there input... its really appreciated to get some help/advice for things
cheers
ps wish I was able to offer some in return some day

[Scales]

All good mate, glad it worked out for ya. Was probably crap in the brushpack or the slipring