Alternator repair

[Tony Radford]

When I initially start her up, the needle moves well into charge territory and seems to be working for a minute or so and then it drops back to zero. Normally, it stays a little in positive territory of the gauge just about all the time. It has been for years. If the car has been sitting up for a while, it will initially move way into charge territory just as you'd expect. None of the connections have been disturbed. This morning I re-dressed all of the engine wiring as it was running through a metal tube for appearance and I couldn't tell what was going on inside (short?) so I pulled them out and replaced the tube with plastic spiral wrap. I saw no issues. Even though is started quickly both times I drove it yesterday (short errands), the battery was dead this morning. I have no idea what pulled it down.

I'm still perplexed over the intermittent activity with the ammeter gauge. For some reason, it charges hard for a few seconds and then all of a sudden jumps back to zero. Maybe the battery really is toast. Perhaps I should take it to NTB and have a more thorough test performed. I can't imagine why it would have drained over night with nothing left on. It seems a bit coincidental that I accidentally left my lights on and drained it just over a week ago before all of this started happening combined with the fact that an alternator repair facility said the alternator was working fine.

Damn - I hate gremlins!