I have a battery problem....when i bout my 87 iroc z 305 tpi my friend lend me a battery the battery was always charging i never had problems..i returned it to him...and got one from auto zone it was doing fine and just recently i started to notice that the battery was not charging correctly..so i changed the battery terminals and still nothing...would maybe a bad ground cause it not to charge? any help would be great thanks

 

Not Charging!!!!!! Come on now. Dont be bashfull. Take the Camaro to Autozone and have them test the charging system. Its eazy and its free. Or check the continuity of both the positive cable and negative cable. Or you can turn on the car and put a screwdriver behind the altenator. If you feel a magnetic force, then the altenator is fine. Culprit must be a bad battery if there is magnetic force behind the altenator. Reply if you got more questions.

 

thanks for the response but its a brand new battery and brand new alternator....and brand new terminals..thats why i was thinking it was the ground...maybe its not right making good contact it only goes to the line below the middle one

 

Easy way to check is this measure the batter voltage with the car off it should be like 12V. Start the car and re measure the battery voltage it should now be like 14V. If this is true the charging system is working. Now if the batteries new and good (can have them load tested for free) it should charge the battery assuming you have good connection to the battery. If you somehoe managed to have a bad ground the car could not start as electricity needs a complete circuit to work. Once started theoretically (although a very bad idea) the car could continue to run without the battery just off the alternator but thats another story. My question to u is why do you say the batteries not charging correctly?

 

Yes older vers of charging systems as long as you don't run lights ect... the alternator will keep the vehicle running with a bad battery. Doesn't hurt nothing. But it won't tell you if the alternator is bad or not I had an alternator with bad bushings did this and it still kepted the car running. Basically get the car checked out with a battery alternator check like autozone ect.. if you can get there. One thing to check to keep in mind it could be charging correctly its just your belt isn't tensioned enough and that would keep the vehicle correctly charging. the battery could have bad cells ect.. I would just if i was you take the battery get it checked out you can pull off the alternator and battery and have them benched tested at autozone.

 

NOw is it Brand new alternator or reman'd i had several reman'd i had to bring back that were bad yes buying a reman will occasionally have bad ones. I would still recommend taking the battery and alternator to have them test them.

 

well thats what i did the alternator is brand new from auto zone and so is the battery..i say its not charging right cause when i turn the car on the battery meter is on the second line from the bottom and it is supposed to be in the middle right...and i checkedthe voltage with the car running and its 14 volts..and it just bugs me that the meter is not in the middle

 

Oh your fine. Step on the gas it might jump up. Could be b/c there is a weak connection if not take it for a drive and see if the needle moves or not. mine did that to a while back. I changed the alternator b/c the regulator wasn't kicking on like it suppose to. But if your getting 14vlts you should be okay. Check connections ect.. Maybe turn your lights on to act as a load and see if it triggers the alternator to kick up the amps. it should move it. If not its a faulty voltage ampere gauge. Just what i think.

 

yeah it went almost to the middle line right now but it just dropped again...and as the car idles like it wants to move but it does not move if the car goes up in idle it wants to go up but it wont....

 

Yea mine does the exact samething i don't see nothing wrong with it. I think its just the volt gauge being old. IMO though.

 

hmm....should i just leave it or put a meter gauge like direct to the battery?

 

Well first off ide like to say you can run with a bad battery but not with no battery as i was taking about. The battery acts like a big capacitor keeping your electronics safe from electrical surges. As far as a bad bushing true a volt meter cant detect them but bad bushings or not if the charging system is working its working. Bushings although might make it noisy with excessive play and maybe heat will not prevent the charging system from working and if it did it wouldnt test good with the test described earlier. Again if a belts not on tight and the charging systems not charging this could be picked up on a volt meter as again its either working or its not and if it checks out on the meter it is. The battery the only way to test is a load test because even many bad batteries will test good if you just measure the voltage. The alternator though could be good but the charging system may have a fault else where. The first thing to do is see if the charging system is working and if not then check the wires and then remove that alternator to have it tested. Gotta make sure theres a problem before you start taking things apart.

 

Yea its probably the gauge or a connection issue. These gauges are nutoriously inaccurate because there really only for a quick referance or ballpark idea if things are good or bad. The volt meter is telling the truth and if its reading 14V thats all there is to it the charging systems working. Now if you really wanted to see whats up with the gauge either fix it or replace the gauge you could tear apart the dash and really get into things but i doubt you would want to go that far with it.