i did a search btw...
Ive noticed my voltage would shoot up to 15-16 (almost in the red) then would spike and drop to 12. The battery would slowly lose charge after that and eventually kill around 8 volts. i put a new alternator in and the volts would stay around 15. Now its doing the same thing.
I checked the conector (looks okay)
i am using a pigtail with 3 wires blk, red, brwn,... there is only a red/brown wires going into the car harness.The black wire on the conector is just cut off and the pigtail is spliced into the car harness. This was the way i bought the car and it has worked fine. this is only my second alt. in 11 years. Im also running the battery in the trunk.

 

Your brushes in the alternator are bad. Or your internal regulator is shot.
Or both.

 

i just put in a new (remanufactured) alt. what do the wires that plug into the alternator (pigtail connector), actually tell it to do? can i hook a meter to the wires coming out of the car harness to trouble shoot?

 

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Damn that wiring diagram is obnoxious. Copy and paste it into a bitmap for a much better view of it. Look for generator on diagram, shows where all wires in stock configuration go.

 

thanks, i will check this out and report results..

 

Any luck?