Alternator problem or something else?

[nickelnutz]

On my way home from work tonight my CRX starting doing some weird things and I was wondering if you guys could help a person troubleshoot his first Honda.

Since the day I got it the car's been idling kinda weird from what I'm used to, seems very high (around 2k) when the car first starts though it drops down slowly as the engine warms up to about 800-1000. Also, what I'm assuming is the alternator, has been squealing every once in a while and when it does the gauges seem to dim a bit.

Tonight on the way home it was doing this quite a bit but the motor started stumbling, the gauges were going dim and the temp. gauge skyrocketed then would drop back to the normal range. It was mainly doing this at around 1500-3000 rpm, not so much idling at stoplights, though the gauges would dim every now and then there too.

I've only had the car for less than a month and so far I've replaced the spark plugs, got the spark plug wires to the right plugs, and redone ground wires from battery and valve cover to body with 1/0 wire. Battery is less than a year old and I've had the car in for a charging system test and it came up saying things were all good so I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[civickiller]

sounds like a loose alt belt. try tighten it up if its loose. also all car when start up cold rev high and then normalize to around 800

[turtlecrxsi]

Not to hijack but I've been getting the battery light pop on sometimes. Okay, we all know that indicates a charging issue and sometimes my lights dim slightly at idle. When I hit the gas everything works fine. I have pulleys and a loppy cam so I figured the idle was just being a bitch. Sometimes it's like that. Anyway, I'm thinking about driving to NJ next month and I was wondering if I should go ahead and change the alternator belt to be on the safe side. The belt is about 3 years old but the ribs on it seem intact and it's not loose. It doesn't squeal either. The idle would lower and the battery light would pop on sometimes in the extreme hot after first running it. I figured it was heat soak. Oh, and when I say lower idle I mean like 900 instead of 1200rpms...

[nickelnutz]

Thanks for the reply. Went out to my car this morning and sure enough the belt was a bit loose. I think I've got it tight enough that it won't slip again, but it was fairly cold this morning so it might stretch a bit once the motor warms up.

Just another question though, if the alternator wasn't putting out any voltage for a few seconds why would the car stumble and the gauges go strange? The last time I had an alt. not putting out power the battery seemed to do a lot of the work for a while letting just the lights dim slowly, not having the whole engine cut in and out.

[nickelnutz]

Update: Car won't start now. Even with a booster pack on it the lights won't even turn on. Any ideas on what to do now?

[turtlecrxsi]

Will it crank? You didn't accidentally mess with the wire on the alternator did you. Also, there is a main fuse in the under hood fuse box on the passenger side strut tower. Make sure you didn't blow it.

[nickelnutz]

It turned out to be the main fuse under the hood that blew since the battery ended up loosing it's charge when the alt. wasn't working. Replaced the battery and fuse and all is well.

Thanks to those that helped.

[civickiller]

ive got a problem of my alt light coming on after 4k, idk

[turtlecrxsi]

Originally Posted by civickiller

ive got a problem of my alt light coming on after 4k, idk

overcharge?

Originally Posted by nickelnutz

It turned out to be the main fuse under the hood that blew since the battery ended up loosing it's charge when the alt. wasn't working. Replaced the battery and fuse and all is well.

Thanks to those that helped.

No problem.

[civickiller]

no because running a dvm on it showed 14.19 at idle then 14.39 all the way to revlimiter. maybe it should be putting out more, idk.