HY, what exactly did this kid do to his alt that allowed him to bypass his regulator? I have no idea. Skip the first 1-1/2 minutes. He babbles about unrelated stuff.

 

I think he got something like this. It just moves the regulator to inside the alternator. That one is for a diesel though.... I have no idea if it would work on yours.

 

I ordered one of those mopar NOS regulators. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, that needle is moody. Half the time it dances half the time it’s steady. No pattern.

 

HY, here's an update. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

The NOS OEM #4111990 voltage regulator arrived. I cleaned it up and installed it on my truck. Took it on an 11 mile test drive. The gauge needle was steady as steady can get. No sign of fluctuation whatsoever at any time.

I measured the voltage on the battery at idle upon starting up the truck. 14.48v. I measured it again after my test drive. 14.13v. Is this normal for it to drop this much after driving it around? Perhaps the cold idle juices it up a little?

Two positive signs: 1) This is the first time since last Fall when this fluctuation adventure began that the needle went straight to the "home" position upon starting the engine. No delays. Since last Fall (and before I put in this OEM regulator today), the needle would always wobble for up to 5 seconds before finding "home". 2) For at least decades (if not from the day I bought the truck brand new in 1993), my needle would always pulse with the turn signal flasher. About a 0.5 - 1.0v fluctuation. It still pulses with this new OEM regulator but, man, very little! Hardly noticeable. Same scene with the power window switch.

As before, I will keep an eye but so far there are things to feel good about. Thoughts?

 

Yeah, high idle will boost output a bit, also, as the battery charges, and gets closer to a full charge, output will likely drop off a bit as well.

I expect to see *some* needle deflection when an intermittent load is applied. (and this includes power windows....) So, I don't think that is anything to be concerned with. So, drive it for a few weeks, and see if the issue returns. Hopefully, this will take care of it.... And yeah, I know, we have said that before.

 

Well that makes sense to me…the battery getting juiced up after running for awhile and the output falling off accordingly. Didn’t think of that. Now you know why I ask stuff like this.

Truthfully I was never concerned about needle deflection under intermittent load. Probably because that’s what it has done since I can remember. Figured that’s normal. But, I was surprised today when that deflection went to near zero after I installed the new OEM regulator. Makes me wonder what “normal” is.

We both suspected these aftermarket regulators might be crap. I think you became even more skeptical than me. Hopefully this solves the problem. Just took the truck out again. No problemos.

As always, I appreciate your input, HY. It’s very useful. . Will post updates going forward.

 

One of the things I love about this forum, is some of the truly bizarre problems folks come up with. Gives me a chance to exercise my brain, and help someone at the same time. Although, we HAVE run into problems here that stumped me, others came up with the fix.

 

I always recognized that, while the people here are generally very knowledgeable, they also are at a disadvantage in that the vehicles we have trouble with are not in front of them. They can go only by what they are told. Let's be honest, how people convey information can be dicey. I always try to be precise when I describe my issues. I figure the more precise I am, the better the response I'll get. But man, sometimes these goofy problems make it tough. And electronics impart the most goofiness. In this case, I had this problem solved three other times only for it to unfix itself of its own volition a week or two later. Not only does stuff like that make it look to others like I don't know what I'm talking about, but it makes me wonder if I know what I'm talking about.

 

That's one of the things about electrical problems I always loved. (hated....) You *think* you have it, only for it to crop up again. Sometimes, the problem is from a completely unrelated cause...... and when you do eventually find it, its a real head-scratcher on just WHY x problem caused y issues. Corvette anti-lock brakes back in the early 90's were like that...... When I worked at the dealership, we had one that was a real stinker to figure out.... as I wasn't busy most of the time, (service writer at the time) service manager gave it to me to play with. (mechanic was stumped, and had more time into it than he was ever going to get paid for.... warranty work....) It took me a couple days to finally find the problem, and actually fixed it. From that day on, if a vette came in with ABS irregularities, it was my problem...... I got REALLY good on those. I think the service manager got a certain amount of joy from handing them off to me..... he got to inflict some pain on me, (in a good way), the car got fixed, the customer was happy, and some other mechanic got paid for work he didn't do...... I DID get some nice bonuses out of it though...... That was a FUN job. The hours sucked though.

 

I looked at the box this latest aftermarket voltage regulator came in (that did not work).

“Made in China”

Need I say more?