Close call. Napa alternator tried to burn up my car.

Posted By: 471Magnum

Close call. Napa alternator tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 03:20 AM

Been dealing with some charging issues that indicate I may have some AC leakage / bad diode on my 1 year old, 3 year warranty Napa alternator. Old alternator was charging well enoough, but causing the sensors on my data logger to flake out (read about it elsewhere in the forum).

To their credit, Napa was really cool about the warranty return. I didn't have the receipt, and they restarted the warranty from today for the replacement.

I got it home and installed it in about 10 minutes (I've gotten WAY too good at this), started the car with a fully charged battery, the alternator gauge shot over to the charge side. A voltage check at the battery indicated 16v volts. Yikes!

Pulled the green field wire and it continued to charge at 16V.

Swapped the field wires, turned the key to RUN and the gauge pegged out to full discharge. WHOA!

A check with my DMM shows at least one of the field terminals was shorted to the body of the alternator.

Nice.

Fortunately nothing burnt up. That situation very easily could have resulted in two cooked wire harnesses, or worse.

Note to self and others: check field terminals for shorts before installing alternators.

Posted By: Jim_Lusk

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 03:23 AM

20-some years ago I had a less-than-six-months old NAPA rebuilt alternator in my Rampage. The alternator DID catch fire...

Posted By: jeebis44

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 04:32 AM

How do you check to see if it's shorted?

Posted By: goldmember

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 06:04 AM

Quote:

Been dealing with some charging issues that indicate I may have some AC leakage / bad diode on my 1 year old, 3 year warranty Napa alternator. Old alternator was charging well enoough, but causing the sensors on my data logger to flake out (read about it elsewhere in the forum).

To their credit, Napa was really cool about the warranty return. I didn't have the receipt, and they restarted the warranty from today for the replacement.

I got it home and installed it in about 10 minutes (I've gotten WAY too good at this), started the car with a fully charged battery, the alternator gauge shot over to the charge side. A voltage check at the battery indicated 16v volts. Yikes!

Pulled the green field wire and it continued to charge at 16V.

Swapped the field wires, turned the key to RUN and the gauge pegged out to full discharge. WHOA!

A check with my DMM shows at least one of the field terminals was shorted to the body of the alternator.

Nice.

Fortunately nothing burnt up. That situation very easily could have resulted in two cooked wire harnesses, or worse.

Note to self and others: check field terminals for shorts before installing alternators.

That's good reading,but I thought the title was "NASA tried to burn up my car". LOL GREAT read. Hope you figure things out.

Posted By: Commando1

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 12:56 PM

Quote:

Napa tried to burn up my car.

Clever/ No, not really. Fail.

Posted By: Andrewh

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 01:25 PM

starters and alternators, I make them test before I take it home to use.

everytime, brand new or reman, they have to put it on the machine before I will take it.

more than once, I had a bad one out of the box.

Posted By: 471Magnum

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 02:53 PM

Quote:

starters and alternators, I make them test before I take it home to use.

everytime, brand new or reman, they have to put it on the machine before I will take it.

more than once, I had a bad one out of the box.

Good advice. Don't think those in-store testers catch all failure modes though. They pretty much just check Output.

Posted By: Andrewh

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 03:21 PM

which would have caught your problem.

but you are right, it might not, but it catches the obvious ones.

Posted By: 471Magnum

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 06:41 PM

And believe or not, this Napa doesn't have a tester in the store.

Guess I can take it a couple of blocks up the road to Advance. :-P

Posted By: Rollin Hand

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/10/13 11:54 PM

That is called NAPA KNOW HOW. lol

Posted By: Golden-Arm

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/11/13 12:21 AM

Quote:

That is called NAPA? NO! WOW... lol

*fixed it for ya

Posted By: lifted85

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/11/13 12:51 AM

I don't go through napa any more

went through 5 different .alt's in about a year's time. the last 1 I had I installed an fired my truck up an it seized an turned in to a big ol magnet lol that was the last straw, went to carquest

as much as I aint a fan of them the .alt seem's to be working great

Posted By: 471Magnum

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/11/13 08:07 PM

Got my replacement, replacement alternator today. Started the install and the adjuster (bottom) bolt hole stripped.

I'm not going to blame Napa for that. Fortunately I had the right size helicoil in the tool box. Quick fix and the rest of install was uneventful.

Charges fine, but it still didn't fix my problem on the sensor (topic of another thread).

Posted By: BB65Barracuda

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/12/13 02:21 AM

Had an alternator from Orielys almost burnt down one of my cars.
I contacted Corporate and they ran me around and had me give them an estimate of the repairs. I documented everything and sent it in.
It was an obvious manufacturing issue that caused the short.
You could see the shorted wires welded to the case.
Long story short, once they had the alternator they denied my claim.
Luckily I made a video of the issue before I removed the alternator.

I sent that to them and told them I was going to post it on utube.

They sent me a check to cover my time and repairs.

Morel of the story, they all sell crap anymore.

Posted By: goldduster318

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/12/13 04:37 PM

I've had more issues with the factory Mopar charging system than literally anything on the car. When I got the car, it had a bad alternator on it that had literally melted the dash harness and caused the headlights to not turn off.

Over the next 10 years (only 6-8k miles at most), I went through 3 alternators and 3 voltage regulators, including ones that were bad out of the box. I was actually using an original unrebuilt 80's alternator finally and that one actually seemed to work ok. Then, one of the field terminal connectors failed one night and it was putting out 18V, which fried my charging wire again while I drove it home for 10 miles.

I finally got sick of it and went to a 12SI Delco for a 1985 305 Firebird. Literally a $50, 78A alternator that is more reliable and you can easily fix yourself. It is fantastic, a rock solid 14.7V no matter what is on and no BS.

Posted By: bigblock340power

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/12/13 04:48 PM

I'm sooooooo done with those rebuilds (and even new) from the auto parts stores. I too had them check the part before I take it home. All to many times it would be bad right out of the box.

I only get/take mine from,
Alternator Shop
2141 Perkins Way, Sacramento, CA
(916) 446-6425
Super great guy, and he knows cars inside and out.

I know it's here in Sacramento, but I'm sure their has to be something like it in just about every city.

Posted By: dinty68RR

Re: Close call. Napa tried to burn up my car. - 05/13/13 04:29 AM

Ditto - there's a guy here in Syosset, New York that has been rebuilding alternators for years - everyone I know that has used him for rebuilding/rebuilt alternators has had no problems...

Glenn
67 Barracuda Convertible (PP1)
68 Road Runner (LL1, 70,000 Original Miles)