I am still having a problem with my voltage dropping all of a sudden causing the car to stutter and want to quit whenever I turn on the headlights, push the brake pedal, put the car in gear. It usaully recovers in a second or so.

I checked the battery ground to frame cable, chassis to engine ground strap, and the starter cables and everything checks out fine.

The car has been sitting in the garage for about 3 weeks now and when I went outside today to start the car the battery was completely dead.

I switched batterys with my buddy to see if the battery was the problem but it wasn't as the dropping voltage problem still occured.

I don't think it is a shorting problem because I've checked everywhere and this problem first occurred while driving on a flat highway.

My uncle did tell me that it could be diodes or something in the alternator causing problems, could all this be fixed with a new alternator?

 

yes, it could. just take the thing off and over to your favorite parts store. almost everyone tests them for free these days.
jess

 

Diodes often go out on stock alternators, it's happened twice to me, one sign is a reduced voltage output, another is a whining sound like a small superchager and another sign of bad diodes is the alternator will get real hot as soon as the engine starts because the current it produces can't go anywhere so it turns into heat energy. I didn't want to get one of those cheap rebuilt alternators at the parts store so I took my original alternator to a local Starter & Alternator service and had him replace the diodes and the bearings in it, I think he charged me $40.00 to do that, It happened again a couple years later so I took it back to him and he fixed it for free!!!

 

easiest way to tell if its your alternator is to start the car and dissconect the positive side of the battery. If the car dies its the alternator.....if it dont you should be good. mine just went out a few days ago.

 

:nono: NEVER test your alternator like that, have you ever heard of a thing called a voltage spike? When you disconnect your battery cable with the engine running if the alternator is charging it can produce voltage spike that will sometimes fry out other components in your wiring system. A buddy of mine did that and then he had to replace his bad battery and his ECU because it was damaged. A better way to check it is just to stick a screwdriver tip to the rear bearing of the alternator, if it's charging any at all it will be magnetized, but that won't tell you if it's charging enough.