Hello all. I've got a 99 Taurus with the ohv 3.0. My old alternator was sqeaking for awhile, so I was not surprised when the dummy charge light came on the other day. We turned the car around and made it back to the house as the car stalled out (about 20 minutes). The car is my wife's daily driver, so when she said her uncle had offered to give her a free alternator from his junk yard, I said ok. We put in the alternator, started the car, it made no juice, so I thought perhaps it wasn't being excited automatically, so I let it idle, revved it, etc, to no avail. That project failing, I explained to the wife why I don't like junk yard alternators, and went and bought a lifetime warranty advanced auto parts one. Came back, put it in, fired it up, no charge comming from it. Idled it, revved it, no charge. I thought perhaps the dummy light was just acting up, so I checked the alternator with an amp meter, no action at all. The connections are all clean, the terminals are clean, the battery holds a charge very well when I have used the clamp on charger, the belts tight, and the alternator(s) have spun, but make no electricity. I thought perhaps there was a voltage regulator problem until I realised that the voltage regulator is attached to the alternator, and so that meant I have tried three voltage regulators as well. As an important side note-I had the auto parts guy test the old alternator, and though he almost had a heart attack because he thought the bearing would fly apart all over the store, it did make some charge. I am not a mechanic per se, but come from a family of mechanics, and every where I turn, every one of them shrugs their shoulders at me. I am hoping one of you have had this problem before, and would truly appreciate your assistance.
bergtheredneck
A shot in the dark...
Clean the 2 pin connector on the alt and make sure its making good contact.
Mine came loose and the idiot light came on + no charging.
Clean the 2 pin connector on the alt and make sure its making good contact.
Mine came loose and the idiot light came on + no charging.
:werd:
There will be a smaller fuse either in the battery box or inside the car which will be for the alternator field coil. If that fuse is blown, it can't charge, since there's no juice going to the coil to make it charge. That's likely the problem. If the fuses are all ok, make sure you have 12v at the 3-wire connector on the alternator on the middle wire IIRC (the ford technical website is down right now, so i can't access the wiring diagram from home to see which wires for sure need 12v, but i'm almost positive it's the middle one and one of the others). If you don't have 12v there, you have a wiring problem.
Yes, what they said. It happened to me. No current getting to the field coil of the alternator = no charge. The field coil wire is the org/Lt blue on the alternator. The fuse is #27 in the power distribution box at the front of the engine compartment. If the fuse is blown, your old alt may have overloaded it, but like mwt said, "Double check all your wires" for a short. If the fuse is good, check with a voltmeter to make sure there is 12v getting through to the alt field coil (org/Lt blue wire).
On my 97 The fuse was good but there was no current getting through to the alt field coil. The problem was org/Lt blue wire was broken off the fuse clip. I had to take power distribution box off to find it. If no power is getting to fuse #27, check the mega fuse. It is located on the passenger end of the power dist box. The mega fuse is in-line between the battery and fuse #27
On my 97 The fuse was good but there was no current getting through to the alt field coil. The problem was org/Lt blue wire was broken off the fuse clip. I had to take power distribution box off to find it. If no power is getting to fuse #27, check the mega fuse. It is located on the passenger end of the power dist box. The mega fuse is in-line between the battery and fuse #27
Hmm, Okay. I dug up this old thread. It has a wiring diagram of the charging system. Thanks to SHO123 for providing it. The thread also describes how I solved my charging problem. http://www.taurusclub.com/forum/index.php?...ic=9768&hl= If you read my last post of that thread you will see where I found the problem. The irony is that the loom bracket is supposed to prevent the loom from flopping aroung and becoming damaged. But it was the bracket itself that caused the damage.
SHO123's wiring diagram shows the field coil fuse to be #26.
SHO123's wiring diagram shows the field coil fuse to be #26.
Hey, thanks to all, my car is back on the road. It ended up being the small field coil fuse. I don't have a book with the car, as it seems to have been stolen with all the rest from salvage cars, and so I never would have checked a small fuse like that. We got the car, with 65,000 miles on it, and interior/engine compartment looking great, for $900 about three years ago, and have around 130,000 on it, with minimal work. It had been run into a ditch and the bumper covers were knocked off, and the transmission sensor's wires were knocked off, so apparently some insurance company totalled it...$200 for new plastic, five minutes to hook up the wiring, and we've had no complaints.
While we're on the subject of wiring difficulties, has anyone else had problems with the clock/radio controls (balance, fade, bass, treble, hours/minutes) not working on the stock dash?
While we're on the subject of wiring difficulties, has anyone else had problems with the clock/radio controls (balance, fade, bass, treble, hours/minutes) not working on the stock dash?
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