woundupz

I have an 86 Iroc (TPI). I was driving to work and smelled something funny in the car. My windows were down and I just thought that the weird smell was from all the road construction outside. The smell lasted all the way to work. After that it stopped. The next day the car completely died in the middle of the road. I took out the battery and it was dead. I had it charged and tested and it is still good. So I took out the alternator and had it tested and was told it was bad. So I got a new alternator and installed it and had the system tested and the battery is still not getting a charge. I removed the new alternator and had it tested and it passed so it is good. Not sure what the problem can be. Faulty wiring somewhere? If so how can I fix that? So to sum up, battery and alternator are good but alternator is not charging the battery. HELP!

JtadaK

Did this happen all of the sudden? Or did you do something recent? What wire is running from the harness to the alternator? I'm having an issue trying to find out which color it is. You should have batt. to alt. A clip that has two wires, one to ground one to alt, then the power control wire.

AFman341

I have the same problem. I was driving back onto base when I started smelling something burning, I stoped and smoke was comming out of the hood, when I opened the hood the Alternator was on fire.

Ive been trying to work on it, I got a newer Alternator that I pulled from my other firebird cause its in worse condition then this one is. I had to take it apart and had to switch the mounting plate from the old one to the new one. So I am unsure if the remainder of the problem is electrical or if taking the alternator apart and putting it back together didnt work right.

So as it is right now: When the car runs with the alternator pluged in normally after about a min or so of running the alternator will start to smoke, has that electric burning smell, I thought it might of been a little oil the first time from rebuilding it but doesnt smell like it.
Also the alternator gets hotter then it should. Smokes from the back of the unit.

When I run the car with the alternator disconnected from the plug in (so just from battery power) The alternator spins fine but never has to get load put on it. ran it for a good 5min with no smoke or sign of problems.
so at this point it ruled out having a little oil in the alternator burning off.

Im not sure if I might have a short in my wiring somewhere or if the power regulator on the alternator is bad (unit is only 4 months old) .

This problem is something that happened suddenly with really no warning at all. So any help with this would be great. Im at a stoping point working on the car right now since I have no more clue on how to fix it. and dont want to order another alternator if the unit itself isnt the problem.

I have a 1987 Trans Am, 5.0L 4 barrel carb