Even in the mid 12's at the alternator is going to be under 12 at the battery. Now I spose you gotta start disconnecting things, one at a time till you find what's sucking the life outta your alternator. You still have a replacement alternator coming from Summit?

 

No replacement coming unless I send this one back first. With as hot as this thing is getting, if it's still good, I don't think it will be for long! Not even sure where to start unplugging things? Guess I'll start at the back of the headlights and go from there.

 

I haven't done a lot the last couple of days but I did try disconnecting the headlights and it didn't help. I've been thinking about this situation and since the alternator isn't charging the battery, wouldn't the problem more likely be somewhere in that circuit? Without any of the accessories on the alternator still isn't putting out sufficient voltage. I really don't know what to disconnect at this point. If the problem is a short somewhere, but no fuses are blowing, wouldn't that suggest the problem be somewhere before the fuse panel? Without having any more knowledge than I do about this, the only thing I really haven't focused much on is the starter. I did swap out the relatively new starter from last summer as it was causing problems after I drove the car. Always had to wait until the starter cooled down before it would want to work. No headers, stock manifolds and I've made certain that the wires are as far away from the manifolds as could possibly be. Is there any possibility that there's a problem with wires going to the starter? There's not many I know but just wondered if it could be a possibility. I think my best bet, like you've mentioned is to start "ruling things out" and the starter has not been focused on a whole lot. I've wasted a ton of money and time replacing things that probably didn't need to be changed. I'm really at the point of replacing entire harnesses before doing much more crap-shooting.

 

Crap, just shoot it!
A power drain doesn't mean you have a short. For a current draw, you'd need to have juice flowing from point a to point b to drain the battery. But that's not necessarily going to blow a fuse. Now a short is something else, but then you'd either have fuses blowing if it's from inside the car, blowing fusible links if from under the hood, or hot/melting wires. Something in the alternator circuit? Haven't you bypassed the factory wiring and gone direct to the battery with a separate wire? What's left to diagnose there? Make sure the engine is good and cold, then start feeling around... all your wires, the starter, and relays you may have under the hood, and see if anything feels warm or hot, that otherwise shouldn't be (electricity in motion creates heat).

 

Might want to follow the main lead from the starter to the fuse block. That lead could have a high resistance short, and not blow the fuesable link in it.

 

It definitely needs to be put out of it's misery, or maybe just me? If I shot the car, with my luck I'd just hit a wire and cause a short!! I was only thinking of the starter as there is a battery cable going to it, and other wires on it, at this point, everything is suspect. Sorry to sound ignorant, I've checked so many things on this car with no positive results, just had to ask.

 

Your starter is being used as a junction block, and other wires connected to it are live all the time. Unless yours is at the + battery terminal, one of those wires would be the fusible linked main feed wire to the bulkhead connector, which supplies power to the fuse box inside the car.

 

ok, so my uncle has a 1978 z28 and has worked on it for quite sometime pretty hard trying to restore it and hes very good with mechanics, everytime he went to start the car it started right up no problems, he even replaced the battery linkage now while working on it today it wont start at all, any suggestions?

 

The main feed wire is connected to the starter still. The group of wires all clamped together below the firewall and by the a/c unit that holds the main feed wire, a wire that appears to power a/c or blower motor?, the old alternator power wire and something else is/was exposed when I bought the car. I tucked the wires into some loom at least. I don't see any fuses however inline with any of these wires? Not sure if it's been tampered with before or they came from the factory like that. Anyway, I'm going to try and trace some wires and feel around tomorrow and hope for something spectacular. I did inspect the main wire to the fuse box last fall but I'll look again.

Welcome to the forum Midnight, not sure what to suggest without knowing a bit more about what it's doing or not doing. Maybe some of the others will be able to offer some suggestions.

 

OK, this is gonna be hard to explain but I think I'm making some progress here. The car actually restarted several times last night after I jumped it and drove it down the street and back. I put a different terminal connector on the battery end of the neg. cable and reattached it. I also installed the new headlight switch that I got yesterday. It's still making the same noise it was before when the headlights are on. I mentioned before that these were relatively new battery cables but I noticed a greenish dusty substance throughout the entire cable when I cut the old connector off? Anyway, after I got the car started and the alt. was showing 14.1, idling at 1500 rpm, as soon as I tapped the throttle to bring the rpm's down to normal idle, I watched the gauge drop down to around 13. I put the meter back on the alt. and it showed 12.97 again. I drove for about 2 miles or so and the gauge never budged from 13 with no accessories on. After I got home and shut it off (which is usually the part where it will not restart) and turned the key and it fired right up. I let it sit for an hour and tried again. Fired right up. Just before dark I tried again, fired right up. Tried turning the parking lights on and the gauge didn't budge. I turned the blower on and the gauge dropped a little bit and started to creep back toward 13. Turned headlights on and gauge dropped again and crept back up to around 12. I got excited and grabbed my daughter (not literally) and away we went to the gas station about 1 mile and a half away. On the way there, all lights worked beautiful, no sinking gauge. I was afraid to turn the car off at the gas station so I let it idle while we were there. About half way home, the gauge dropped suddenly and severely, all dash lights went out, headlights were barely noticeable. If I turned the headlights off but left parking lights on, the dash lights would come back on bright and the gauge would come back to 13. As I pulled in the driveway the gauge was going all over the place. Down to 9, back to 13, if I hit the gas it would drop and then come back. Lights were flickering bright then dim and so on. I wondered about the alt. getting hot and possibly causing this to happen and it was so hot you couldn't touch it for a split second. After I shut the car off I noticed the interior courtesy lights were still going from bright to dim and back. Of course, the car wouldn't start again at this point.

Even though the Camaro acted more bizarre than ever, I gotta be getting closer. At one point (obviously) the battery was being charged by this alternator. The problem didn't start until after the headlights were on for a few minutes which is what I'm sure drained what charge the battery got while driving it beforehand. Still don't know what would be making the alternator get so dang hot and then stop charging. So now I'm wondering if I should focus on grounds again or the headlight wiring?