Charging issue

[cecil misner]

I am again having starting problems. So far, I have replaced the battery, all cables, and the belt drive system with a serpentine. I have a 100 amp one wire alternator that is getting a bit old (about 6 years.) According to the voltmeter, it puts out 12 plus volts at an idle and north of 13 volts at speed. My thought is to install a 140 amp alternator if I can find one that is a one wire hookup. Advice please?? Cecil

[Bill Holley]

hi ceec, as for the 100a alt u have.. it should be more then large enough for a bucket. what u are describing was the same as i had on my bucket. i ran mine for 10 yrs with no problems. it just seems when u first start the car it needs a little kick in the rev's to get it to charge.

[Dewey Burton]

Ceeee..I had a problem with my bucket, where I had to keep replacing the solenoid....It turned out that the wire I had from the ign. switch to the solenoid was too small. I replaced it with a bigger wire and ..wala...the problem has never surfaced again...sometimes it can be the smallest thing, that throws everything out of whack...

[Orville Duncan]

Ceec, the 100 amp is plenty big for a bucket, there isn't much on a Bucket that uses power. I don't know what size wire you have but that maybe a problem if it is too small. Just guessing you may have a ground problem. Disconnect the Neg wire at the Battery and make sure everything is off on the Bucket and not running. Connect a test lamp between the neg Bat. post and the neg cable. The light should stay off, if it faintly glows or comes on strong you have something leaking to ground.

[Lee in KC]

My starter was acting kind of puny until I put a dedicated ground cable from a starter bolt direct to the ground post on the battery. Really perked it up!

[Jim Diehl]

Ceec,

Check the voltage after the engines runs for a time. I had this issue with the Mercury and it was a bad diode. it would charge fine until the diode got warm/hot. The voltage dropped dramtically and took voltage away from the battery.

[Jack L]

[quote="cecil misner"]I am again having starting problems.[/quote]

There are many ways an electrical system can fail. I've seen one-wire alternators that appeared to be charging the battery, but when not turning, would slowly discharge it. I've also seen starters that test good on the bench, but were unable to crank the motor. What are the specific symptoms you're experiencing? Do you have a digital meter for troubleshooting? The small ones are very cheap nowadays.