I have mentioned that I am having problems with my alternator. It seemed to work intermittently for a while but now seems to be doing nothing...

I am wondering if these problems were caused initially by some other strange issues with the electric in my car. I will first describe what is up with the electrical in my car, and then ask my questions.

First of all, the PO of my car began work on some kind of VEG oil system which involved adding and routing some wires around from under the hood into the cab (for a switch to either a fuel heater or a tank valve), but as far as I can tell, he didn't ever actually make any significant alterations to the electrical system.

Next, I have had problems with my blower motor. The brushes are worn down. I wedged something into it (a small woodchip to give to get it to temporarily make contact again until I could replace it or get new brushes. After doing that, it worked for a short time, but then stopped. I just assumed it stopped because my "fix" fell out or something, and I haven't had a chance to open it up again and check what was up with it. The blower did not work when I bought the car (because of the brushes).

HOWEVER, last night I looked in my fuse box, and the fuse for my blower was totally melted. I replaced the fuse and the blower works again, kind of (there might be other issues with the CC system).

Now, what I notice now that the fuse is replaced is that whenever I turn my blower on, the otherwise dead tach reads a constant reading of about 2000rpm (not that it matters what the reading is exactly), and when I use the electronic seat control, it jumps up even higher, maybe even pegging the needle.

Other than that, the electrical seems to be working fine for other things (headlights, interior lights, windows, etc).

Now that you have the background, the reason I bring this all up is that my problems with my alternator began around the time that I did a few minor things involving the electrical in my car.

I did the following minor electrical things around the time that my alternator stopped working consistently:

1. My "fix" on my blower motor as mentioned above. Because of the melted fuse, I am very suspicious of this one.

2. I tried to do the tach amp cigarette butt fix, but couldn't get the cap to pop off of the top part of the amp (I got the cap unscrewed, but couldn't get the plug part to come out of the cap in order to get the butt in there). The only reason I include this is that one of the wires that the PO installed connects to the ground on the tach amp.

3. I had a dim headlight, which was cured by wiggling the connections behind the housing.

I am going to have my alt tested and replace it if it turns out to not be working (which I am 95% sure it is not), but what I am wondering is if there is anything in this that could have actually fried the alternator.

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