Well, my truck didn't get me home tonight

[jim_in_dorris]

Got off work early last night (Tue. 7:30pm) went out to the truck and it won't start. Cr##, Go back in the building, and ask one of the maintenance guys for a jump. Jumped it and it started right up. Okay world is good. Start to drive off and it's hesitating and bucking and not accellerating. Ok, it's really cold, 35mph winds and it's starting to snow. Maybe that's what's wrong. Nope, I have this bad feeling, and look down at the Amp gauge. 11 volts and falling. Cr##, quick call my son. Luckily he's still in town, so we tell him to meet us at the parts store. 2 minutes later the truck dies. Call him back. We coasted into a service station off the main road, so we were out of traffic. We are only about a mile from the dealership where he works. Fine, lets just tow it over there, call up one of the service writers with a key to let us in and fix it. So we hook up one of the chain he carries with his truck and start towing. About 1/4 mile from the shop he slows down to turn, and I can't brake fast enough and run over the chain. Oops, well it's off the tire now, so tow us over there. We go to the shop, get it inside, get a alternator at AutoZone 15 min. before they close, and go back to work on it. Pulling the battery cable loose, I notice that it has melted in half next to the battery terminal. The other end broke off removing it from the alternator. MAYBE that was all that was wrong. NOT.... Fixed the wires, started the truck and watched the battery drain off. Fine put the new alternator on. Started the truck and it doesn't charge the battery at idle, and only goes to 13.5 under throttle. Cr##. Well, it will get me home. Start to back out of the bay. NO BRAKES!!!! when the chain got ran over, it wrapped around the front axle and tore my pretty stainless braided brake line in to two pieces. So, we piled into his 4-runner and drive 35 mph all the way home in a snow storm. We got home at 12:30 and have to leave with him at 7:30 am to get back to town and work. Night all.

[EagleMark]

I hate when that happens!!! :mad1:

Least you didn't hit him? :happy:

So is the Altenater bad too?

[1project2many]

That sucks. It sounds like one of my days at work with the buses!! "Anything that can go wrong probably already has."

[PJG1173]

we'll I'm glad I'm not the only one with this kind of luck. my buddies nicknamed my truck "if it ain't one thing"...

[rokcrawlin85]

this reminds me a little of my case just a few weekends ago. i'm dealing with tracking down some death wobble in my 85 blazer, finally found a crack in the passenger side frame rail at the crossmember. so instead of keeping it at the house where i don't have a welder, i decide to trailer it to a buddy's place to fix it up. well, i still haven't gotten my 350 tuned real good yet in the low RPM areas (due to the fact it's undrivable with death wobble), so pulling it over to get on the trailer was a hassle in itself. then, getting lined up to get on the ramps, start to climp over the fenders and then my rear end slides sideways kickin out the ramps and drops my back end on the pavement and wedges my front driver tire inside the trailer fender. backing off the trailer, i blow out one of my pretty(expensive) braided steel brake line in the front. great, 37" tires, horrible 1/2 ton brakes anyway, a fast idling engine since it's always getting restarted since it won't idle good, nearly too narrow of ramps for the width of my blazer, and now i have to be in 4 low to get it to crawl up the ramps and the flatbed's fenders at the same time without slipping (not good with three wheel brakes). so i vise grip the one brake line off. get lined up again, pinch the seat with my ass cheeks, and go for round two. after a few more shots i fially got it on and strapped down. The moral of all our stories, When it rains it pours...

[woody80z28]

Ah, good times.

I don't know if I can think of one single day as bad as that...but I had a rough spring last year. I've got 3 cars. I drive the truck in the winter, and the Beretta and Camaro are the summer hot rods. I had the Beretta in pieces still from doing a smoked clutch swap & engine regasket job in March when the auto trans in my truck died in April. Ok...so I woke the 4mpg Camaro up from hibernation early to use as a DD til the Beretta was done. The powdercoat place ended up taking 4 weeks to get my headers done so the Beretta sat there almost ready to go for quite a while as I drove the 93octane pig to work every day. I took my old man for a joy ride in the Camaro after he was busting my balls about how "fast" his Buick was after I tuned his carb. On the redline 3-4 shift at WOT it ate the rear u-joint and tore up the custom driveshaft. So I had it flat-bedded to the house next to the dead truck in the driveway and the unfinished Beretta in the garage. Had to drive my fiance's Subaru for the next week when the headers finally came in for the Beretta. A few days later I got a new custom driveshaft delivered and installed it in my sloped driveway since I couldn't push it up the hill in to the garage. Then I was back to two cars!

Fast forward to this fall and the truck is done, but in the garage getting a TPI fuel pump upgrade when I broke the 3-4 shift fork in the Beretta at the strip and got towed home...so I got to use the Camaro as a DD again for a couple days. haha

[EagleMark]

Ah, good times.

I don't know if I can think of one single day as bad as that...but I had a rough spring last year. I've got 3 cars. I drive the truck in the winter, and the Beretta and Camaro are the summer hot rods. I had the Beretta in pieces still from doing a smoked clutch swap & engine regasket job in March when the auto trans in my truck died in April. Ok...so I woke the 4mpg Camaro up from hibernation early to use as a DD til the Beretta was done. The powdercoat place ended up taking 4 weeks to get my headers done so the Beretta sat there almost ready to go for quite a while as I drove the 93octane pig to work every day. I took my old man for a joy ride in the Camaro after he was busting my balls about how "fast" his Buick was after I tuned his carb. On the redline 3-4 shift at WOT it ate the rear u-joint and tore up the custom driveshaft. So I had it flat-bedded to the house next to the dead truck in the driveway and the unfinished Beretta in the garage. Had to drive my fiance's Subaru for the next week when the headers finally came in for the Beretta. A few days later I got a new custom driveshaft delivered and installed it in my sloped driveway since I couldn't push it up the hill in to the garage. Then I was back to two cars!

Fast forward to this fall and the truck is done, but in the garage getting a TPI fuel pump upgrade when I broke the 3-4 shift fork in the Beretta at the strip and got towed home...so I got to use the Camaro as a DD again for a couple days. hahaSo in other words you have three toys and no daily driver? :innocent2:

[jim_in_dorris]

Okay, home again. We got the brakes done, they work fine. Installed another alternator, fired it up 14.4 V at idle.. Yahooooooo. 20 min. later 13 V at idle, and 12 with the lights on. At least it got me home. Will try again tomorrow. Gotta love reman'd parts from the 3rd world.

[1project2many]

Gotta love reman'd parts from the 3rd world.

Ok, gripe time. There are times when there's no way around third world stuff. So many brands that used to be quality have been bought up and attached to junk that everything is a crapshoot. It's probably no surprise that GM's outsourcing manufacturing to China. We had a Pontiac Torrent in the shop a couple of years ago with a 60 deg V6, maybe a 3.5? Engine had always had a slight noise but it got worse, sounded like a bearing. So we pulled the pan and looked. The thrust bearing was missing! Engine was built at a Chinese plant and the bearing had never been installed. WT???

Cardone is the largest domestic rebuilder and they've put a bunch of other companies out of business because they sell so cheap. Problem is, the business model allows for a percentage of defective units to be shipped. They just make up the dollar loss by increasing volume. What???? So I put in a master cylinder that's improperly rebuilt and it fails prematurely and causes an accident. Or a steering rack that starts locking up in corners after only a few hundred miles. Or a distributor which wasn't cleaned after sandblasting and takes out an engine. Or a hydraulic brake booster which suddenly stops providing boost. What good is that for anyone? But it's all OK with Cardone because they've already allowed for these bad parts in the yearly budget.

In my case I'll pay more for quality. We carry elderly, school children, and disabled people and I won't sacrifice quality for cost. But there's no guarantee that I'll get quality because I spend more and in some cases the only source of the part is the rebuilder that I know has a poor record. I try not to buy parts that I know come from the junk rebuilders as it's the only way I know to keep the good companies in business. But I'm nowhere near shrugging my shoulders and accepting "third world quality" as inevitable.

-->BTW this doesn't reflect on Jim's situation. I might have done the same thing in those circumstances.

[EagleMark]

That is so true! I like to do something once with quality part that will last. But even if you spend more and use a USA company you get examples of Cardone above.

I worked at a Caddilac dealship in late 70's and we found a bad AC Delco part brand new once! Back then it was very rare. But today it's much worse and with new or reman parts does not mean they will even work or last? Very frustrating!

[jim_in_dorris]

Okay now for the weirdness. The next day, I go out and fire up my pickup to go to work. The plan is to go by Autozone and have them test the alternator in the truck. I look down at the voltmeter, and it's back up at 14+ volts. ????? I have been driving it for 2 days now with it showing perfect. I stopped at a local alternator re-builder yesterday because I am going to need a bigger alternator for a couple of projects I am working on. They can build me a 125 amp hr alternator that should work when they get done, instead of just dropping in a guess.

[1project2many]

If you get an alternator from an 85 Cutlass Calais with a 3.0 it's going to be a GM designed 94A unit that will bolt in place of the 10SI. It has a better cooling fan, larger regulator with big heat sink, and extra holes in the case for cooling. The 125A"upgrade" kits are similar to the Quick-Start kit which is really a larger stator and regulator and doesn't do anything to address any extra cooling. Worst part is large, rapid change in voltage as rpm climbs off idle so lights will seem to surge as regulator kicks in and out. Kit works, but there are better ways.

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/delcoremy.shtml

The 85 Olds part no is 7294-12

[jim_in_dorris]

project, my alternator is a 12SI, but not the 94 amp one.