I was driving on the highway last night doing 65mph in a monsoon type of spring storm and I hit a huge puddle of water and my battery light stays on constant now and I'm losing charge, i had to buy a battery just so i could make the 100mile trip back home and the bigger problem was it was raining and i had to keep wipers on and with rain comes fog so my wind shield was foggy and I needed to have blower on sometimes to get windshield clear and just a huge mess.

My question is,Can a alternator recover from being wet? I am going to buy some brake cleaner to dry it out but I'm not sure if that would be wasting my time or not. The pully turns and the belt has no strain on it just no sustainablecharging coming from the alternator. Theres a small amount of intermitten charging but none to recharge more than whats being used. with a near dead battery i was pushing 11.7 volts when I had it running at a Interstate batterys Garage and they tested it for me, it went dead a few minutes later after being on foran hour and 20 minutes stright. So i had to go to Fleet Farm and buy a new battery from them just to make it home 100miles in the rain.

 

just take it out a go to autozone and get it tested.

waterwont hurt the alt

 

brake cleaner wont dry it out. it might start a fire though. get some wire dry spray if you are worried about it. a heat gun aimed at it will work too.

 

The problem with taking it out is that my driveway is a river and its going to turn to ice now [&:]I can't jackthe carup to take the alternator outtill probably Sunday at the earliest since the jack would probably sink into the ground.

For now I'll try Bones Suggestion and hopefully that will get me through for now. $120 is alot and I don't have that much now. I really screwd myself too because i converted the 99harness to fit a 95 alternator and i don't believe i remember where i put the old harness. the 95 alternatoris more expensive over the 96-99 i've noticed too.

So would it getting wet cause all of this? or was it just a fluke that it happened at the same time as me driving in a monsoon?

 

not a good idea, if it get too hot you could melt things. its pretty hard to control the heat with a heat gun.

no

you can take the car to autozone and they can test the charging system with the alt in the car.

 

Use WD-40 The name stands for Water Displacment formula 40. It works well to displace water, and won't short electrical systems. Furthermore, it will help to lube things up. This is an old tip for after power washing a car and blowing out water from the electrical connectors.

 

If you need a new alternator I have a few. I also have a few chop up harness's.

 

how much for an alternator? and is it the 95 style harness? I fell asleep on the couch and never got a chance to work on it so I'll try a few things to get the alternator working and then maybe i'll grip denial put a new one in.lol

 

I got a new one and it reads a perfect 14.4 volts.

took me 30 minutes to change and was pretty easy.