gauges work only when revving

Whats up gentlemen,

i just did a swap in my 95 civic. I already had the Big 3 upgraded, i have an optima yellow top deep cycle battery. & i just upgraded my alternator to 160A.

Now in my car, every time i put the hand brake down, my gauges on my cluster turn on. as soon as i did my swap, i noticed that once the hand brake is down the gauge is not lit. But as soon as i rev the motor, they come on and stay on. I also notice the lights on the dash become a bit brighter..

anyone have any idea what this could be?

any help would be greatly appreciated !

Thank you!

Your new alternator might not put out much at idle.
That brand is your new alternator?

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The brand is Load Boss
i bought it off ebay

when i bought it, it was a 4 pin configuration made for the US motor,
but here in Canada our configuration is a 3 pin. So i had to get a regulator and change it to 3 pin.

Could that have effected it?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

maybe i should just wire the gauges directly to the chassis instead of my hand brake? .. but it doesn't make sense b/c once my hand brake is down its supposed to be grounded.. it always has been.. and now it when i put it down, it seems like its only grounded when i rev the engine?

any ideas guys?

Ground them to chassis or -ve supply - not the handbrake.

Handbrakes are often a switch to ground - the handbrake light is grounded when the handbrake on on.

funny enough boys

i checked the voltage today on the battery
it was reading
10VOLTS!!!!

i turned on my head lights the voltage DROPPED to 9.25V!!! AND THEY STARTED TO FLICKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
im wized, i did all that work for nothing

does anyone know someone in Toronto Canada who can rebuild alternators?


BUT

im gonna see if its the regulator that is causing this issue b/c it was changed from a 4 pin to a 3 pin.

i also should have mentioned that my lights started to flicker and DIM! until i revved the motor!!!
then they all came on
WOW.

In other words you alternator is fine.
Your battery is dead.


It's not quite that simple - it could be both, or the other....

But in comparison, both my and my mum's 20 year old 60A-80A alternators provide 14.4V (at the battery) at idle. Mum's even does it with high-beams on (over 280W).

my battery is fine

hmmm
i think it could be a grounding issue
ill check and post back boys

If your battery is 10V, it isn't fine.

But if your voltage was measure elsewhere.... yes, you may have a connection issue...

I've seen this with "high output alternators" that are rebuilt.
Simply put your alternator does NOT charge at idle speeds. (700 RPMS).
But will charge at higher RPMs. (1200 or higher)
Test it with your DMM,
You will see that at high rpm your alternator will charge fine.

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So what's the solution?
Get a smaller Alternator Pulley. (The end piece where the engine belt runs)
This will get the alternator to spin faster at idle speeds.


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... and hopefully not too fast!
(In old days, rally cars had to increase the size of the pulley because alternators were not designed to be run constantly at high RPM.)

It seems the rebuilds are less windings of a thicker wire...
Pity - I have been impressed how stock 20 year old alternators supply 14.4V at idle speeds with high beams etc. Mine is only a 75A unit and the battery charges at over 40A after cranking.

So much for modern Y-Delta (etc) switching stators.

u know what
i could be wrong
i tried again today.. i changed ALL my grounds i even added another! i even scraped to bare metal when i put the contacts on..
still didnt crank

im going to charge my battery at 10amps for about 6-12 hours on 10amps
and see how that goes.. ill keep u guys posted
thx

well tomorrow im gonna charge up the battery and see what happens and take it accordingly i will keep u guys posted!

thanks for your input everyone!

k gentlemen i boosted my car

everything was fine

the voltage at the battery was 14V to begin with then fluctuated around 12.6 V

same with the alternator..

then out of no where.. the voltage on the alternator started to decrease!! im talking around 11volts

and then i measured the battery same thing!

does this mean the battery is crap? or the 160A alternator i put in is crap?

or should i just charge my deep cycle battery fully and see what happens??

thx guys

alright

i checked the voltage across the battery now its 12.36V

im charging it at 2A right now

and hopefully this will fix my issue

come on optimaaaaa

Once the alternator cools down it'll charge again.
Change your alternator. IF it was refurbished, check out IRAGGE alternators. I know they''re not cheap, but its worth the money considering its ganna work right.

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i just changed the alternator!!!!!!!!!!!!to 160A!

iragge? im gonna see if anyone in Toronto Ontario carries them.

thx guys

Your battery should be ~12.7V fully charged, but it should not drop (by itself) to 12.4V etc. If it does, it is stuffed else has some load connected.

Good batteries will usually be ~13.6V after charging due to surface charge. That should take hours - else minutes under load - to drop to ~12.7V.

And with the engine running & charging, the battery should way exceed 12.7V! Geez - even my 40 year old alternators put out more than 13V at idle!
Alternators should output 13.8V to (max longterm of) 14.4V.


But check you battery. I have seen alternators use their entire capacity trying to charge a faulty battery. (That's before the battery explosion or fire...)

well after charging my battery to 14.89V
i then started the car, every thing worked
the voltage at the alternator was 14.4V, same with the battery.

BUT..
after about 5 min, after the oil heated up the rpms dropped a bit from 1300RPMS to just under 1000RPMS...
the voltage started to drop guys.. and i mean drop!.. from 14.4V at the battery and alternator to 14V, 13.87V, 13.25V, 13V 12.8V etc etc
i quickly turned the car off.


so what it looks like, whenever i rev the motor voltage rises again.. stays like that for a bit then drops.. its looking to me like the alternator cannot charge at low rpms and only high ones.. so you guys were right

im in the middle of changing my alternator now. AGAIN back to the stock one.. then im gonna take that "160A" out and get it tested at as shop in the GTA..

and to top it off , i go to put the other alternator back in, and theres slack on the line! i cant get rid of it.. blah !

ill keep u guys posted

I strongly suspect a bad battery - your alternator may be ok.
Charge the battery and then watch its voltage drop.
Maybe first connect a load (headlights etc) for a few to 15 minutes to remove its surface charge to get it to ~12,7V open circuit (no load).
Then ensure it remains open-circuit/disconnected.

If the voltage drops, it's bad.
If it drops 0.1V in 24 hours, it's badly stuffed.
It should take at least12 months for an AGM battery to drop a total of 0.5V to 1V from fully charged.   

But with a 160A alternator, that Optima should get pretty hot.
That's how an Aussie Richard Cranium finally figured out that his post's first reply was correct - his 3-month old Optima Yellow was stuffed. Unfortunately 4 more pages and several LONG PMs didn't convince him, but the HOT battery did. (He upgraded a 45A alternator to a 75A alternator because he thought the alt was the problem. Dik Hed indeed!)

well gentlemen,
i left the car over night and came back in the morning and measured the voltage and it was 12.6V. i was reading up & contacted optima and they said that when the battery is discharged it takes a few recharge cycles to re-energize the electrolytes in the battery again.

now whats funny is, i take out the 160A alternator and i look at the pulley and it has an indentation!!! the belt was just starting to rub!!! luckily it wasn't on the car for long so the belt is still good.


now i do some testes on the alternator, i find out at;
1000RPMS its producing 3.3A
1500 - 23.3A
2000 - 29A

thats where my issue is!! the alternator!!!

the alternator is only good at high RPMS.. i loose in the low RPMS..

so what ive decided to do is.. make the pulley smaller on the alternator so it can produce better amperage at lower RPMS.. also i'm going to recheck the regulator.

i noticed now that when i put the belt on the alternator there was 1" play in the belt even after adjusting it! so i've decided to bring the size of the belt down one notch to make it have the perfect play in it.