The voltage regular is like a valve. Think of your bathtub. You draw water from it for some purpose. There is a faucet that fills the tub. You don't want the tub to overflow, but you need the water to keep running your process. The bath tub faucet is self regulating. When the water gets low, it fills the tub. When it's full, it shuts off. The electricity is like the water. If the tub overflows, it's like the battery getting too much power. Instead of water overflowing, maybe getting into the power wires to your process, the excess power cooks your battery. This causes the acid to boil and build up sulfates on the battery cells. They won't hold energy and the battery burns out.

Not know what you do with the crew, I can't advise on what to do. Cutting grass? Carpentry? Stone mason? These trucks get used for everything.

 

50/50. Depends on traffic, number of stops, how often you need to start the engine, etc.

 

20 mile round trip and I'll leave it running at the one stop I have to make, picking up some big timbers.

www.woodsshop.com is what I do ol grouch.

 

Oh boy, California was the banes of my existence when I worked in logistics.The bridge laws there made everything ore difficult than necessary in my opinion. I have a 5X10 trailer I've had for 30+ years. It pulls fine behind a car or SUV. I have 3000 pound plates so I can legally tow a 2500 pound load. You might steal the wife's Tahoe or what ever to use a trailer. U-haul rents some decent sized ones. Maybe borrow a friends truck. I loan my equipment to a select few friends who I trust. I've borrowed a truck a time or two but having 4 vehicles in the drive, I rarely need to borrow anything.

 

no trailer or friends with trucks with lumber racks. These are 20' 6x8 timbers I'm picking up.

 

OK! My friend who knows this stuff alot better told me No! don't do that foo! Just wait till the new computer arrives and do this the right way, so that's what I'm doin!

thanks again guys, you're quite a bunch!

 

That would be the wisest course of action. Of course, we don't always do what is wise..... I know I am guilty of that..... Shocker, I know.

 

Ouch! I know exactly what you have there. I have a tree farm. You might have gotten some of my lumber when I did my last harvest a couple of years ago. Mostly red and black oak along with some walnut. I do have some equipment you could borrow but being 2500 miles away, your new brain box will be there before I can get there.

 

2010 Charger 5.7 battery light came on and stalled like 10 minutes later. Battery read 0 volts on multimeter. Installed fully charged battery and it went to 5 volts in a minute without even starting, just in the time it took to tighten it down and go and turn the key. Looked like a short inside the alternator, and guy at Autozone says he sees them quite often and yes it will drain the battery right quick just from being connected, if the alternator has a short in it, with the car on or not. Anyway, I disconnected the alternator (hell of a job from up top) and installed another charged battery and it held voltage and drove 16 miles home no problem. Don't run headlights or daytime running lights or fans or heated seats or radio or anything electric and you should be good for a surprising amount of miles. If you got electric steering, maybe disconnect that, too. Maybe keep a fully charged battery with you in case you need to swap it out halfway home. I'd drive it home or somewhere I can readily work on it asap.

 

Throwing in my 2 cents from my experience the past month. 1) You need to learn electrical because 2) the "car guys" don't 3) the alternator fills the battery with amps, which it needs to start and power the powered things like windows, headlights, A/C 4) if the amps aren't being fed back into the battery after they are used up by starting and running, they get depleted 5) in my case, jump starting didn't work a dozen times (but it was fun to watch the "mechanically inclined" blame it on all types of things they didn't understand, I know now 6) got it towed back, put a good slow charger on it, and the volts popped back up, but the charger still showed it wasn't complete 7) called battery store where I just got new battery and they told me that amps take much longer to build back up (who knew?) 8) I let it charge another night and it started right up again 9) been trying to learn what is going on as I have a new starter, alternator and am on battery #3 10) the whole thing is a system (see #1 and #2) so 11) I have been driving it but putting a charger on it each night to make sure I don't end up stranded with a bunch of helpful idiots who understand less than I do.

Today I went to BatteriesPlus and AutoZone and LOOKED at what the diagnostic machine said. At BP, he was going to leave it at "battery good" but I pressed for other reasons I could be having a problem. He tested and said "starter good" but on the alternator, he said "oh, there is the problem" - your voltage regulator failed. So I go across the street to to have them test it, telling them that I bought the alternator from them and knew there was an external regulator that BP said was the bad part. Neither the young guy or the old guy seemed to know what I was talking about. The young guy put the reader on my vehicle and announced I needed a new alternator. I forced my way to look at the screen. It said "VOLTAGE REGULATOR: FAIL". He STILL tried to tell me I needed a new alternator! And back in the store, so did the 60+ yr old!

Yes, you can still drive, but you have to recharge the amps in the battery. Yes, you can go to a "professional" but I am finding they are few and far between.

I hate that I've spent so much time on this, but seeing as how I plan to have this vehicle (van conversion) for a long time, I feel I'll be better off knowing how she works and how to fix her myself.

So far I have just started to ensure my wiring is healthy and have replaced some corroded wires and connectors. Getting up my nerve to venture into the PCM. If I can do it, you can too.