Alternator/Electrical problems on an '86 Camry

[McTimson]

Hope someone can help me out with this....it's an '86 Camry, automatic.

About 2 weeks ago, my battery light came on, and the lights started getting dim at night...so I took it home, my brother looked at it, and said the alternator was bad. Got a new one (well, rebuilt), he installed it, and all was well. Then the other night, the battery light came on again, and I didn't want to risk driving at night with a bad alternator, so I took another car to Advance Auto Parts with my alternator, had them test it, and it tested fine, did 15v. So I put it back in the car with a new belt, figuring it might do something, but the light was still on. So then, I hit the gas when it was in park, and the voltage shot right up to 14.5v, the lights and everything worked fine. So this morning when I had to leave, I just revved up the engine, and the alternator kicked in, but on the way home, the light came on, and revving the engine did nothing....so I looked at it, and if you rev the engine a little bit, the voltage goes up a little bit, if you rev it a lot, it goes up a lot, to like 13.5...it's acceptable, I guess, but it's still not good. So I took it to Advance, and had them test it in the car, and the computer thing said to check the alternator wire. Took it home, pulled the wires out of the plug, cleaned them up, and put them back in, but it's doing the same thing, only going up when the engine revs a lot...so now I have no idea what to do. Could it be the wires leading to the battery, a short or something somewhere? Maybe the belt is too tight? (Or too loose?) Any comments would be great, this is my first (and only) car, and I really need it running, I hate mooching rides off people...thanks!

[Ostornadoe]

Did you have the guys at the auto parts store check the battery? Might want to make sure the battery is fine, although it sounds like it's just not getting enough voltage... Check all the wires from the alternator. I know, not a lot of help, but I tried.

[McTimson]

Battery is fine, and just to make sure, we switched it out with my brother's battery (Optima red top), which is in there now...made no difference.

Only trouble with checking all the wires from the alternator is that they all go into the huge bundles of wire that are grouped to gether with the wire loom stuff....I was going to just pry that apart and look at them, but is the loom there for protection, or just to make things neat?

[McTimson]

Alright, I cleaned off some more corrosion on the positive terminal of the battery, and that seemed to help, a lot....now, when I start the car, the voltage goes to about 12.6v, but then slowly drops about .01v per second. And if I rev the engine, it still goes back up. I was planning on replacing the wires today, but it's too windy outside. However, I did test the resistance of each wire from the fuse box to the alternator, and they all came up with 0.01, which is basically no resistance...so now I'm wondering if it's even worth it to replace those wires.

[CraigW]

Not sure about replace but inspect ALL connections, They are the weak area.

[McTimson]

I guess I'll try to find some more connections tomorrow...I really want to replace the alternator wire harness, does anyone know of a place that sells them? Advance and Napa didn't, anyone know of a place online that might? I guess it's called a 'pigtail', or something, the part that plugs into the alternator.

[McTimson]

Jeez...cleaned up the alternator connections even more the past few days, didn't do anything, then last night we were messing around with it and it wasn't returning any charge at all....so I returned the alternator today and got another one, put it in, still nothing....then, when I was about to give it up, I looked at all the fuses, and the right headlight fuse was burnt out. Replaced it, and now it works fine. How a headlight fuse makes the alternator not work at all, I have no idea, but all I know is that it works now.