• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Voltage regulator?

rightseatsis

NAXJA Member #953
NAXJA Member
Location
San Francisco
My parents 1989 Dodge Aries just fried its altenator. Changed it and all seemed find for a day, now it seems to be producing a charge but the battery is not getting charged. I am wondering if the voltage regulator has gone bad. I have heard they have a computer setup integrated into the voltage regulator. Is this a home garage repair or am I looking at a trip to the mechanic. Any advice will be apprecitated.
Mary
 
If this is like the Chrysler system in XJ's, the voltage regulator is in the engine computer (rather than the other way around), but I'd suspect the battery or the wiring first. The only thing a voltage regulator does is switch the field of the alternator on and off to keep the voltage from going too high. It might depend on what you mean when you say the alternator seems to be putting out a charge. But if the alternator is putting out the correct voltage, then the regulator is working, but that doesn't automatically mean it's getting to the battery, or that the battery is accepting it. It isn't all that uncommon for the battery to go bad after alternator trouble, if it's been run dead a few times.
 
Back
Top