Wierd Electrical Happenings
 

So, I'm in Oklahoma visiting with the outlaws for the Labor Day weekend. When it's time to head back home I get about 70 miles away from where we were and it hits.....

My drivers seat starts moving back and forth.....the radio shuts down completely, the A/C quits and I get a face full of steaming hot air....then I look at my guages and they are doing really wierd things...like registering about 50 MPH when I KNEW I was doing at least 70.

I pull over to a gas station, pop the hood, yank all the carpets up, trying to find a short or something....can't find anything...

I shut the car off....oops....big mistake. Car won't restart...battery is dead...2 month old battery and it's dead....windows go up and down at a snails pace.

Long story short, I ended up spending another night in Oklahoma and rebuilding my Alternator...(well, I paid a shop to do it....I just pulled and replaced it....)

Car is doing great now...but just in case anyone ever has that happen to them....I had to share...oh...and just in case this doesn't sound like a major deal, try driving your SD from the back seat, as that's how far back your seat can go :)

That's what happens when rectifiers want to get ugly with ya. Had that happen coming back from NOLA once. Just knew there was no stopping - head to the house, I managed to get the sunroof about 6" open on the last drops of juice in the battery. It must have been 150F in the car when I hit the garage.

Wow... I'm glad I'm tall :D - I drive mine with the drivers seat all the way back anyway... if mine started going the other way it'd probably kill me if I couldn't get the steering wheel to zoom out a little.

Once I put the backplate of the doorswitches on wrong, so the switch was snug against the backplate, when I pressed the button it jammed and I was nearly squashed by the power seat as it went forward. :eek: Thos things are STRONG! :dizzy2:

I think having a voltmeter is one of the greatest gauges to have in a car. When I was coming back from florida I knew my alternator (well, the regulator) had died on me when I was going through Georgia. My diehard international held up for another 7 hours of daytime driving with gauges and radio.....and then about 1.5 hours at night with headlights. I was finally forced to pull off in Florence, KY right by the border to ohio. MB of cincinatti came out (thats 34 miles away) in their cool M-class and gave me a new MB battery for $142 (only took an hour!)....then the alternator magically started working again, and I went the rest of the way home the next day. :D

It took another 5,000 miles before the alternator finally gave out completely on a trip home from school to my house (5 miles)...very convenient. :) Then I swapped it with a nice 65A bosch rebuild from Murrays autoparts for $125. That was 9k ago...it was so freshly rebuilt that the bearings had new-bearing whine....which has finally faded away.

Ever see the old movie "Christine"?...lol:grim:

Pawo: it took $120 to have the unit rebuilt inside and out, so I guess I did ok there...especially for being in podunk Ok.

Mustang: yep, read the book before I saw the movie...awesome story...not great to live through...especially with 4 girls in the car with me... :)

You lucky dog...lol.;)

Remember? Oklahoma is death to alternators.