Help....78 Celica will not charge?

[ValkSmile]

Hello All, I’m new to the board. I have a 78 Celica that I bought about 9 years ago to use as a daily driver. The car had been sittin for a few years and had 82k on it. I drove it home (barely) did a little work on it through the years and been driving it ever since. Now I have about 182k on it, well worth the original $700 investment. The car still runs great and has many newer parts and I do all the work myself, but the latest trbl has got me stumped. The alternator is not sending any current out to the car, the Amp meter shows discharge and the charge light in the Amp meter is on. The alternator is new and battery is good and they have been tested several times. I even took the car to a mechanic I know so he could look at it and he said the same thing I already knew, the Alt is sending current but the current is not getting to the car or battery. He seems to think the wiring is broken somewhere. Anyone have any ideas specifically where I could start looking for the culprit. I’ve checked all the fuses and connections that I can see. Does anyone know of a hidden fuse or connection that I may not have seen? Any help or suggestions would be great. I’d love to keep the car running but its not worth several hundred bucks to take it to a specialty shop to try and get it fixed if they can even find the problem.

Thanks
Scott

[stepho]

Scott,

Sounds like either a broken wire/fuse/connector or a broken regulator.
The Haynes manual covers testing the regulator.
The same manual also has wiring diagrams to help you test and fix any wiring problems.

Is the battery being drained?
A bad ground on the intrument cluster will also give similar gauge readings.
I had this last year.
Once I figured out that it was just bad gauge readings, I ran it for the rest of the week until I could get time to fix it properly.

- Stepho
RA28 Celica

[ValkSmile]

Yea the battery is being drained, also the regulator is built-in the alternator and seems to be fine, guess I'll start looking for that broken wire....

[skipper141]

Hi, I'm new to this list.I just acquired a 78GT. You might want to check the fusible links.There are 4 of them.I think one of them goes from the altenator & from the battery.Hope this helps. skip

[bashattitude]

Usually when you have a fuseable link go bad the wire coating will have an inconsistency in it's shape. If you notice such try to see if the wire "stretches" if you find a "stretching wire" you have found a bad fuseable link. I could be wrong but isn't there just one wire that runs from the alternator to the battery?

[Tercel GTS]

With the ignition off what is the voltage at the alternator? With ignition 'on' but not running what is the voltage at all three wires of the plug? Does the color of the alternator plug match the color of the harness plug, brown brown or green green? Are they a perfect match on shape?