84 camaro v6 carbed

ok plain and simple : my alternator is not charging the battery.

Had the alternator tested and its fine and the battery is brand new.

I know its a wiring problem. Does anyone out there have a diagram of the wires??? Where does the red wire coming out of the top of the alternator go??

A diagram would be great thanx

 

wire coming out of back of alt goes to batt. THis is what charges it. the wire on top should go into the dash.

 

Which way was alternator tested. I had 3 places do that "simple" test on it of volts, checked ok. But had load test done later and it only put out 55 amps when it should have been 105 on mine.

 

I had a similar problem on my IROC, except mine was overcharging. Do the carbed 2.8's use a 3 wire alternator? A heavy red wire and a plug with 2 wires? If so, read on. If not, welll maybe this will help, maybe not.

OK. The heavy red wire goes to the "B" terminal of the starter. The positive battery cable also goes to this terminal. This charges the battery. Got it? OK. Now, the 2 wire plug. I believe its a brown or tan, and a red wire. The brown/tan goes to your alt gauge/warning light. The red one goes to the same "B" terminal on the starter. However, down by the starter it has a fusible link on it. Well on my IROC that link was blown. The purpose of this wire is to tell the regulator in the alternator how much power the battery has. If this wire carries no current to the regulator, the alternator will either put out full power or no power.

To check if the link is blown, set a volt meter to "ohms" and put the leads on the ends. If you get a lot of resistance most likely the link is blown. To repair it, you have to replace the entire link with another with the same rating, or do as I did and put an in-liine fuse in its place. Be sure to get one with a waterproof case.

 

On my '86, there's the damnedst (sp?) thing... the alternator light on the dash. Get this! You know how all the lights turn on in the dash, when you turn your key from "off" to "on", but don't start the car?

Yeah, well, on my car, if I somehow happen to notice that the alternator light is not lit up, it means the alternator's shot!

What kind of stupid f'ing light is that!?!? A warning light that goes OUT to tell you there's a problem?!? Anyway, I don't know if there's other years (82-85 or 87-92) in which the light acts this way, but maybe it'll help.

By the way, this "backwards" light info is right out of my '86 owners manual. Hey... wait... a long time ago, I helped someone out on here with a charging problem, and gave them the whole wire trace deal from the GM service manual.

Hah, sweet, for some reason, I saved that message to my computer. Here's the dirt on the alternator- but remember this is from the '86 GM book, it might be different for your '84. If all the same wire colors exist, it's probably the same setup.

Wow, it's from LS6.com .. I haven't posted there in years.

--------------------------alternator wiring-------------------------
Okay, here's the info as listed in my '86 GM manual.. but just check for me, are the wires in that connector "red" and "BROWN", not red & black?
Brown is not only for the warning light, but it "turns on the generator". Red goes to the starter, they didn't mention it's function.

Brown goes from the alternator, into C100 (engine-to-pass compartment connector), where it changes into a brown/white wire. The brown/white wire then splits as follows:

Brown -> C100 -> Brn/Wht "A" + Brn/Wht "B"

Brn/Wht "A" goes to a "resistance wire" of 10 ohms, then goes to the "run" terminal of the ignition switch.

Brn/Wht "B" goes to a diode, then a volts indicator circuit on the dashboard. That volts indicator circuit gets power from the gages fuse. The diode is listed as having the striped side "aimed towards" the alternator, with the non-striped side aimed to the dashboard light. If you know electrical diagrams, that means:

alternator------|<------dashlight

The red leaves the connector, and goes thru a fusible link. It then goes to the starter motor, on the same terminal that the positive cable from the battery goes to.

GM also gave a "simplified" diagram of the alternator circuit, which you might want if you're not using the dashboard.

Alternator "pin 2": direct to battery (+)

Alternator "pin 1": thru a light**, thru a switch, to battery (+)

Alternator "BAT": to battery (+)


***Note: The manual mentioned that there must be a 10 OHM resistance on the brown wire. This resistance "protects the diode trio", which is the rectifier inside the alternator. I'd suggest using a large 10 OHM resistor instead of a warning light if you use that simplified diagram directly above.

In fact you could use both a 10 OHM resister -and- a warning light if you wanted to. Using just a light doesn't seem safe, and I think that's what GM was saying when they showed the "actual car wiring" (from the split of the brown/white wires).

I hope this made sense! Let me know if it didn't.

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Hm; this isn't very diagnostic, is it? Well, maybe it'll help anyway.

 

Ah- yeah, that's what I was looking for. You should do a test on the brown wire, if it exists on your '84. Like that old message says, brown "turns on the alternator".. if the brown wire has 0 volts, your alternator's rectifier won't power up.

 

well i took a look at the wiring today. There was no brown wire. I have a thick black wire that goes to batt. and a red wire coming out from the top that goes to the thick black wire.

I guess the 84 must be different or someone hacked into the wiring before i got to it. That top plug only has the one red wire coming out of it but it looks like there used to be two. Maybe that was the brown one?

 

You could probably ask over the general tech board; you probably have the same charging system as an '84 v8. If I think of it when I get home tonight from work (estimated around 2-3am, sigh), I'll take a look at the '84 alternator in my basement.

 

If the warning light for the alternator won't light when you
turn the key to between "on" and "start", you should replace the
bulb. The alternator needs that bulb in its circuit to make it work.
At least that's what my friend who owns an alternator/ starter rebuilding business told me. Some while ago someone (maybe RB83L69) went into detail explaining how it actually works, but I don't remember the original subject, so I didn't do a complete search.

 

It's precisely what I said above, about alternator "pin 1". Read that, then, read the ***Note.