Alternator Problems? Car is DEAD...

Okay, here's the story...(1995 Geo Prizm LSI 1.8 Litre; 118,000 miles)

I had used my car to come home from work on Saturday. Everything was working normally, so I let my friend take it, and right before he got on the freeway, it just died. No power whatsoever. So he called me and said he was stuck in traffic, and couldn't even get the gear in neutral to push it to the side of the road. Tow truck came and towed the car back to my place.

I replaced the battery, and as soon as I hooked it up, the alternator started smoking. Decided to replace it completely, so we did that. Car started up like a dream, and after another day, I went to use it and DEAD. Same thing, not one ounce of power. Can anyone guess as to what is going on?

If we installed the alternator wrong, wouldn't it not work in the first place? I'm clueless as to what it could be. The only thing I've ever had go wrong until now was the starter, and since then, no major problems at all. This just came out of nowhere.

Any help is appreciated!

I dont have experience with that particular problem but I will try to help anyway.
so far we know that the battery is not getting charged by the alt.

something wrong with the alt?
I think not- you just proved that.

I would first want to find out if the voltage regulator is inside the alt. or a seperate component?

I wonder if there is a short somewhere?

lets wait for a response from someone with experience...

Well, I ended up buying a battery charger, so I could at least get it to a mechanic, and I had them do a diagnostic, and they couldn't find one thing wrong with it. He had no idea why it would be doing what it did, and suggested that I use it like normal, and hopefully since the battery got a good charge, it should be working. So far so good, but that was only earlier today.

Just this morning my friend told me that his co-worker told him she had the same problem, and all she had to do was charge up the battery one time, and it worked fine for her.

Sounds like an intermittent type of problem; you may want to carefully look for any loose or corroded ground connections.