Started up the 85Z today and it seemed OK, but when I turned the radio on, it decided not to work. I turned the car off and tried to turn it back on, and nothing, nada, zilch! Leads me to believe the altenator was bad and I was running off of the battery. Is this a correct asspumption? I pulled the battery and altenator and will have them tested tomorrow. I bought the battery a week ago so I'm OK there. Also, is the regulator built into the altenator? If so, cool! If not, where is it located so I can change that out too? Thanks in advance for you guy's help in this.

James

BTW, I need to change my profile.

 

What does your voltage guage read?

 

Is the choke light on?

 

Check the cable connections at the batt.

 

Alt and battery are good. What do I test next?

 

Ok - having been thru many of these on different cars, try this, you WILL need a voltmeter!
1/ with battery disconnected, check for voltage. Should read 12V or better. Anything under 12V with no load, bad battery
2/ Then connect battery to ground and hot wires. Read off the posts 1st, then off the wires. BOTH should read 12V or better. If you get no voltage with battery connected, battery is discharged. Take it to a shop (autozone, napa, whatever) and have it checked. If it's only discharged, you gotta find out why. If it won't take a charge, then just replace it and you have your problem.
3/ If you see 12V both ways, next step. Do you have interior lights? Are the guages turning on when you turn the key? If not, then try the headlights. If you get headlights, but no interior lights/guages etc, then its one of 3 things
a/ fusible link. This is between the battery and the firewall, they can just go.
b/ headlamp switch - the switch that turns on your headlights. These can ground out, MUCH more common with the pull on/off switches than the rocker switches
c/ fusebox. The fusebox can heat up or disconnect from firewall. Any of the above 3 will kill everything inside the car (including key to start) but leave the headlights running
4/ If you get NO interior electric AND no headlights, but have good voltage across the batter, you have a bad ground. Probably the battery ground wire.
Try the above, let us know the results!

 

I'm chasing an electrical problem myself, how'd this turn out for you?

btw, how much would alternator charge be off if the belt wasn't completely tight against the pullies?

 

If there's no power to anything I'd eyeball the igntiion switch. Also, if you have headlights, but when you go start and get nothing from the motor and no change in headlight density, that's a dead giveaway.