My car was in an accident back at thanksgiving time and sat at a garage for about a month and a half. Before the accident the battery and Alt were working absolutly fine. When I went back down to get the car, the battery was completely dead. There wasn't even enough juice to turn the dash lights on or anything. I finally got it started and let it run for a while with cables on it to get a somewhat decent chagre in the battery. It ran for about 3 minutes and stalled when I took the cables off. I put the cables back on and jumped it again and this time let it run for about 15 minutes with the cables on. When I took them off this time, it stayed at full idle and didn't stall again. I even sat for a while and held it just above 1100RPMs. It ran this way for about another 5 minutes +/- some so i'm now up to 20 minutes of idle time since I last jumped it. I let it sit then for about 35-45 more minutes at idle while we got the trailor ready and figured how I was going to get it up on the trailor w/o grinding the bottom of the car off. so now i'm up to well over an hour of ilding time for the car. I drove it up on the trailor and brought the car home (3hr trip) and went to start the car to bring it back off the trailor again and it was completely dead. Being the middle of the night and with snow on the ground, i put it in Neutural and pushed it off the trailor and into the lot. When the garage that it was at now looked at it, they tested the battery and alternator and said they both failed and would need to be replaced. The alternator I just moved from my old 90 GP N/A to the TGP about 2 or 3 months ago. The alternator was new in the N/A GP in August of 02 so its been just about 1.5 yrs on it. IS ther anything that could cause this to happen? could I have installed it somehow incorrectly? Like I said, no problems until it sat for a month and no, no lights were left on or doors open, i checked all of that as soon as it didn't start. Also, if i do need to replace the battery and alternator, where have you guys found is the best prices on this? Any opinions on an Iceburg Alt?
You killed the alternator by trying to charge the dead battery!
How old was the battery? I've seen new cars kill the battery just sitting for a short time. If the battery was way dead (less than 8 volts) its probably shorted out. The excess current draw that is needed to charge even a weak battery can take out the little GM alternator. It over loads the diodes. Thats why when you replace the alternator CHARGE THE BATTERY ON A CHARGER OVERNIGHT, or at least a few hours. Autozone now offers battery charging service for alternator purchases because they are trying to reduce the warranty returns from people jumping the car and expecting the alternator to charge the battery and run the rest of the vehicle.
thats good to know thanks. I forgot to mention that I did put it on a charger for a short time (until the charger quit working ~5-10 mins). The battery I'm not sure how old it is, it came in the car when i bought it a few months ago. I'm going to pick up a new battery tomorrow and install that and have the alt tested again b/c they said it apparently doesn't get a good read on it if the battery is bad. If that's the case, and the alt is dead also, isn't there something like rewinding the alternator or something? Any info on this? would the Iceberg alt upgrade kits help me at all?
The ice berg kit is a decent kit. it gives you a new back end and new stator widings to increase the amperage. the back end has heat sink on it to cool off the diodes and it also includes some new internals.