Hey Guys, I went to fill up the other day and shut the engine off to put the gas in. When I started back up my battery light stayed on. I looked at the gauge and didn't notice any difference so I drove it home. The next night when I was driving my headlights & dash seemed to be a bit dim but the battery gauge didn't look like it had moved much. I drove it again the next morning and the battery gauge seemed to be lower. All this time the battery light on the dash was on.

So my thought was that the alternator is bad and I planned on replacing that this evening. I moved the truck this morning to take another car to work and when I started it up the battery light was off and the battery gauge was reading higher than the day before.

Could the voltage regulator on the alt be going out? I thought that when they went, they were either dead or would put the battery in an overcharge state. I'm going to look into it more when I get home and take the alt to the parts store for testing but I was just wondering if anyone ever encountered this before. Thanks.

 

Test it with a dmm. They have internal regulators

 

Turned out to be a bad alternator. I removed it and had it tested at Advance Auto. It showed FAIL in a couple of categories but most notably it wasn't putting out any voltage.

I picked up a 130amp lifetime warranty alt. It retailed for $140 plus tax but with my 10% Military Discount, a $50 gift card I had from Christmas and a $10 mail in rebate I wound up paying $66. Not bad

 

Nice score, thank you for your service.

 

X2

 

the reason you didnt see gauge move cause its a dummy gauge, dont know why they bother putting it there. by about 8-9 volts it will drop than its too late but pretty much 10-17 volts it stays dead center. your oil pressure is fake too, if you have anything more than 5psi it too reads dead center.

 

Which vehicles were they installed in and can they be replaced with the real thing? Thanks for this info.

 

All ford gauges have been fake, well more like idiot gauges for 20 years now. if you want real one you have to install aftermarket.