So here is the deal. I had a mobile mechanic drive about 45 minutes to get to me and he charged me $35 to look at it and another $30 to fix it. So $65 was pretty good to me. It was going to cost me $50 just to tow to a shop.

He started by hooking battery back up and attempting to start just to hear it. He then looked at all fuses under hood and in car. (he's not happy with some weird wiring and I think I'm gonna have him come back out to redo it but has to do with no fuses where there should be fuses.)

He then asks me to move my other car so he can get his truck up there to hook up jumper cables. Would you believe the darn car cranked?! Well he checks the alternator and battery while its still hooked with jumper cables. He unhooks the jumper cables from my battery and the car cut off. So he looked stumped and then went and tried to recrank it and was back to square one.

He discovers a yellow wire unhooked. Its been that way the entire time I had it. When we went to buy it the people we got it from said it came from a fan and that it wasn't needed. We never questioned it because we saw the fans were on. He took that wire and showed me it didn't run to the fans but toward the fuse section of car. He unhooked battery and put the end of that yellow wire on battery cable and then hooked the battery back on top of it. (I can show you a pic in a bit). After doing that he went and it cranked right up. He checked alternator and said it was charging and all was right with the way my husband had the alt hooked up.

It looked like that wire said ABS something but I'm lost on that one. Can anyone make sense of this for me? He said with the alt that was on it, it probably didn't need that yellow wire but with this one it did??

 

So were you too a victum of former owner who thought it was easy to monkey wire a car to make it work? My car had wires that didnt belong as so I got rid of them. My extra wires were that of a car alarm gone bad. The car had a viper alarm and was wired correctly at one time but someone decided to move some wires around and messed it up. So I get the car and see this set of wires and found the nest and got rid of it. Cleaned up all the splices with some electrical connectors and electrical tape to cover everything up and no issues. Well everything but that dang Security light not going off.

Love the color of your car by the way! Need to upgrade from the salad shooters though, but thats just me. I know there some who like them.

 

I actually like my salad shooters lol My 81 z28 had them much like yours. I wanted something different! He had no clue why that wire mess was like that but he said he could fix it back for me. I think I will take him up on that and probably a list of other things!

 

Not that salad shooters are bad, I think they looked better on some other Chevy models such as a 1999 Extreme. I see one drive around Oahu all the time with those on. My car had the five spoke aluminum rims that were just clearcoated. They were all bent from the car sitting a long time. I found the chrome ones from another camaro owner who needed them gone. My gain!

I have to see why my BCM is having some issues, that is where a few of the wires were ran when I got the car. I also had two air bags that were popped from a front end collision. The car was never totaled because my best guess was it was stolen and then abandoned in Hawaii. Before it was abandoned somebody gave it some love by getting a new front fascia and front right fender and hood to try to fix it. The substructure was damaged but I was able to get the fenders to hang on the car without any issues, they look pretty straight. Oh yeah I put a 98 front end on my 97. I am not a fan of those square headlights, they are spending after a while. I had a cutlas that had them and 60 bucks a month started to hurt.

Do you still have your 81?

Do you think that guy will get the wires close to factory? Wish I could see the picture you have or have yet to take to see what wire you speak of.

 

I will take a pic of the wire mess as well as what he hooked up in a bit when my husband gets home. I'm anxious to crank it in front of him and better yet, drive the darn thing. Its been a long 7.5 weeks.

 

WOOO HOOO!!! So how does it drive! If the car ran with his vehicle providing power and died when disconnected then I would have guessed that your charging system was not working at the time and your battery was not powerful enough to keep stuff going. Now that everythimg seems to be hooked up right you are good to go and charging like normal.

Now lets see some pics of the whole car... bigger than your sig please !

Massey

 

Well I haven't driven it yet. Very anxious though. So do you know what that wire would of been without me showing you much more? Why was it shutting off without it? Was it something hooking the alt to the fuse box?

 

Here is what my buddies dad taught me about the charging system.

1. Battery starts the car, once the car starts the alternator takes over.
2. If alternator isnt hooked up right the car will run off the battery till it basically drains it and then shuts off.
3. A test if its your alternator or battery is to start the car (which he jumped it) and then disconnect your battery. If the car stays running the alternator is good and you could have a weak or old battery (bad battery signs would be a slow start or barely turns over the car or no power at all).
4. If the car shuts off after the battery is disconnected that could mean the alternator is bad or even not hooked up.

Its hard to really say what the "yellow" wire is. Most wires hooking up to the positive terminal are red. Perhaps the old wire was bad and replaced with a new wire that happened to be yellow. The alternator hooks up to the battery to charge it while the car is on.

A picture is worth a 1000 words.

 

^ Disconnecting the battery when the engine is running used to be a good alternator test. But on todays cars with all the electronics and computers, it's not such a good idea to do that. The battery stabilizes the system, and disconnecting it won't protect any electronics should the charging system have a problem and cause a spike in current.

 

What your friend's Dad taught you was how generator systems worked. Starting in the 60's things changed then in the mid 70's what you used to know went out the window. Here is an update.

The battery starts the car and runs all electronics (this is why the CCA rating is so important even for small engines)
The alternator keeps the battery at full charge and helps out when the draw is more than the battery can handle.
Disconnecing the battery while the engine is running can cause a current surge, or voltage fluxuation that could damage the alternator or other components.
Test alternator with an ARBST or other type of alternator tester.

Massey