Re: [AMC-list] That was wierd !!! (Battery Charging Issue)
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Re: [AMC-list] That was wierd !!! (Battery Charging Issue)



Hi Armand,
It's been a while since we last talked. Interesting electrical problem. Here's my 2 cents worth.

During the Monsoon, the Javelin most likely was using maximum electrical power, wipers on, headlites on, stereo blasting and what other accessory you were using. Considering that it was raining hard, there's a possibility that the alternator belt was slipping under the high load . Under those conditions the battery will make up for the extra power needed (discharge) eventually causing the low voltage symptoms. Also, the battery may be sulfated or extra resistance in the charging system causing the regulator to think the battery is charged. The brains of a charging system is the battery. The voltage regulator responds to system voltage and tries to keep it at ~13.5-14.5 volts. The battery has an internal resistance that varies with it's state of charge. The charging current drops voltage across the battery and the regulator senses that and tries to keep the voltage with in the range. The resistance of the battery is very small, so any small resistance in the charging wiring can cause the voltage to read higher than the state of charge of the battery and fool the regulator into thinking the battery is charged. I got fooled once by assuming that a battery on a charger taking a charge was still good. I looked only at charging current and ignored voltage. I was curious and placed a voltmeter across the battery and read 17 volts! The battery was sulfated and considering that my vehicle's voltage regulator cuts off at 14 volts, the battery never charged in the vehicle. I miss the batteries that allowed specific gravity tests, that's the best way to determine state of charge.

Good Luck,
John H.

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Today's Topics:

   1. That was wierd !!! (Armand Eshleman)
   2. Re: list is silent (Armand Eshleman)
   3. Re: 70 AMX Alignment Specifications / Polyurethane Suspension
      Bushings (Marc Montoni)
   4. Re: That was wierd !!! (tom jennings)
   5. Re: list is silent (tom jennings)
   6. Re: list is silent (das24rules@xxxxxxxxx)
   7. Re: 70 AMX Alignment (das24rules@xxxxxxxxx)
   8. Re: list is silent (das24rules@xxxxxxxxx)
   9. Re: That was wierd !!! (Steven F. Brueggeman)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:30:37 -0500
From: "Armand Eshleman" <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AMC-list] That was wierd !!!
To: "AMC, Rambler, Nash,Jeep and family" <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <008f01c9f861$96b48960$6701a8c0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

Saturday Afternoon I went to Spirit Lake, IA for a cruise in. People were
swarming around the white Javelin.
It drew more attention than I have eve seen it draw before. I don't think
there was more than a half an hour total
time for a four hour stay that some one wasn't looking at the car. There was
maybe 100 to 150 cars there.
About 8:30 I noticed, and so did everyone else, that it was beginning to
cloud up in the Western sky.
I got very unlucky and ran through a flippin monsoon rain storm on th way
home.
The Javelin reacted very unusual to this event. Back in the 70s I had driven
the car
through a few monsoons that you couldn't really even see the road, and
Saturday nights storm
wasn't that bad, but anyway, the engine began to stumble and it almost acted
like the rear wheels
were hydro-planing, but then I realized the engine was shutting down
momentarily and then re-lighting
itself before it completely died. It almost flet like the clutch was wet and
slipping, and then would dry up again and grab.
But it was an electric glitch. As I got closer to home I noticed the
headlights were dimming and I then suddenly realized
why the wipers moved so slow, no electric power from the battery.........but
the alternator should have been working, the belt stayed on the whole time,
the alternator is a light duty one, I think 35 or 40 amps. I just barely got
the car home, it began to run real crappy. Apparently with low voltage and
an MSD Pro Billet ready to run Distributor you get real weak spark events.
The alternator light never came on. I got home and pulled the battery out
and dropped in a different one. The engine ran fine then.........the battery
that was in the car, an optima about five years old, seemed like it didn't
want to accept a charge when I hooked up a ten amp charger to it. It pulled
a steady 8 to 10 amps for a while and didn't pull less for a long time. I
thought at first the battery had dropped a cell or something. So I backed
the car out of the shop and washed all the road grime off and put it away
for the evening. This morning I put the optima battery back in the car and
it started the car just fine, after having failed to turn the engine over
last night after I got the car home. I put the charger back on and let it go
for a while. The alternator light would come on when I turned the key to on,
but when the engine fired up, the alternator light would go out. That's
normal. I drove the car about 170 miles today to New Ulm and back and never
experienced a glitch of any kind. Any one got any theories? electrics got
wet?? wet short? drained battery? when I got it home the compartment heat
dried everything up and it was OK then?????
Do you think the optima battery has been damaged??
What do you guys think?
Inquisitive minds want to know...................

Thanks,

Armand



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:34:09 -0500
From: "Armand Eshleman" <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [AMC-list] list is silent
To: <das24rules@xxxxxxxxx>,	"AMC, Rambler, Nash,Jeep and family"
	<amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <009e01c9f862$151438a0$6701a8c0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

Yes Sir, thats what I've been doing all week. Thinking about and driving
AMCs.
Armand
----- Original Message ----- From: <das24rules@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 10:59 PM
Subject: [AMC-list] list is silent


i hope everybody has just been out driving their ramblers/amc's. not to
many
people been on this week. what gives?
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Checked by AVG.
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6:16 AM



------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:14:26 -0400
From: Marc Montoni <Freedom@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [AMC-list] 70 AMX Alignment Specifications / Polyurethane
	Suspension Bushings
To: amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: "John C. Hughes" <jchughes48114@xxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20090628171115.042d0e58@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


"John C. Hughes" <jchughes48114@xxxxxxx> said:


I have some questions on 70 AMX alignment specifications. I'm looking for great directional stability, so increasing the caster beyond spec's is wanted. Please see bullets below.

Nominal: Caster +1.25 ?
             Camber: 0? ? .125

Desired: Caster +4?
           Camber: 0? ? .125

  * I want to increase my Caster settings to 4? positive. Will there
    be a problem with this much caster, especially using poly bushings?

  * Has anyone tried this?


Just FYI, here is the setting recommended by Performance American Style:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/A36n50m_IztvwyaexOGvPw?authkey=Gv1sRgCLzvp9nM5_aO4AE&feat=directlink

-- Marc





------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:12:21 -0700
From: tom jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [AMC-list] That was wierd !!!
To: "AMC, Rambler, Nash, Jeep and family" <amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:
	<c81e13650906282212u1db720b7qb7148266f2e587dc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Bad cables or connections or other intermittents. IF the battery was bad and
woiuldn't hold a charge, then it would not have imporoved upon reinstall.

If your battery cables are those clamp types they're usually no good after a
year or two.



On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 19:30, Armand Eshleman <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Saturday Afternoon I went to Spirit Lake, IA for a cruise in. People were
swarming around the white Javelin.
It drew more attention than I have eve seen it draw before. I don't think
there was more than a half an hour total
time for a four hour stay that some one wasn't looking at the car. There
was
maybe 100 to 150 cars there.
About 8:30 I noticed, and so did everyone else, that it was beginning to
cloud up in the Western sky.
I got very unlucky and ran through a flippin monsoon rain storm on th way
home.
The Javelin reacted very unusual to this event. Back in the 70s I had
driven
the car
through a few monsoons that you couldn't really even see the road, and
Saturday nights storm
wasn't that bad, but anyway, the engine began to stumble and it almost
acted
like the rear wheels
were hydro-planing, but then I realized the engine was shutting down
momentarily and then re-lighting
itself before it completely died. It almost flet like the clutch was wet
and
slipping, and then would dry up again and grab.
But it was an electric glitch. As I got closer to home I noticed the
headlights were dimming and I then suddenly realized
why the wipers moved so slow, no electric power from the
battery.........but
the alternator should have been working, the belt stayed on the whole time,
the alternator is a light duty one, I think 35 or 40 amps. I just barely
got
the car home, it began to run real crappy. Apparently with low voltage and
an MSD Pro Billet ready to run Distributor you get real weak spark events.
The alternator light never came on. I got home and pulled the battery out
and dropped in a different one. The engine ran fine then.........the
battery
that was in the car, an optima about five years old, seemed like it didn't
want to accept a charge when I hooked up a ten amp charger to it. It pulled
a steady 8 to 10 amps for a while and didn't pull less for a long time. I
thought at first the battery had dropped a cell or something. So I backed
the car out of the shop and washed all the road grime off and put it away
for the evening. This morning I put the optima battery back in the car and
it started the car just fine, after having failed to turn the engine over
last night after I got the car home. I put the charger back on and let it
go
for a while. The alternator light would come on when I turned the key to
on,
but when the engine fired up, the alternator light would go out. That's
normal. I drove the car about 170 miles today to New Ulm and back and never
experienced a glitch of any kind. Any one got any theories? electrics got
wet?? wet short? drained battery? when I got it home the compartment heat
dried everything up and it was OK then?????
Do you think the optima battery has been damaged??
What do you guys think?
Inquisitive minds want to know...................

Thanks,

Armand

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AMC-list mailing list
AMC-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://list.amc-list.com/listinfo.cgi/amc-list-amc-list.com





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