Alternator? Bad ground? Ground strap?

[Jacob Alan]

Okay so I bought a truck about a month ago (1996 Silverado 1500 2wd 5.7), the battery was bad when I bought it, but I bought it from a shop owner, so he put a new battery in it and everything worked fine...

 

Fast forward to last week, I put a subwoofer in the back of my truck, ran everything but never hooked anything up, so I know for a fact it has nothing to do with the issue, but I let my battery die listening to my radio... I throw a battery charger on and forgot to take it off, so it was on overnight.

 

Wake up the next day and drive 10mins it dies.. Leave the charger on it again and drive 40mins before it dies again.. I bought a new battery just to make it home..

 

The battery isn't charging and is pulling a negative draw from the battery.. Like the alternator is bad.. I took it up and had it tested and they said it was fine.. My battery gauge is completely down, below 0.

 

 

Somebody told me the alternator probably killed the first battery, and it just now killed the newer one...But again it checked out fine from Oriley's.. Should I listen to these guys or spend the 130$ and replace it?

 

I see the ground strap to the frame is also snapped in half, looks like 2 cables coming off the frame. Figured it was my issue but someone said no.

 

Also there is a squeaking noise coming from the engine, I assumed was the belt but the guy from autozone said it was a bearing in the alternator possibly, that when bad will still check on their machine fine?

[barry G]

96 should have the complicated alternator. 4 wire hookup. the ecm has its say about fine tuning for itself.

 

these trucks with carpet do not like open ended wires on the cab floor.

 

check some fuses too?

 

I killed one alternator thus far, it was an act of god. Lightning less than 100 feet away - tin roof shed. welded the rear bearing, then shredded the case when it tried to spin. It kept charging through all that destruction. It took several months after that lightning to catch up. Bizarre.

 

Not a complicated system... just some extra think. I'd get those grounds to good at least...and terminals, normal chores.

 

 

the extra squeak may be an accessory that is falling back out of alignment. I had to let the water pump pulley realign to a new a/c pump and alternator.

 

in your case, it could be an indication of a fail... it goes both directions to gain a squeak, just change accessory pulley alignments in any way...new stuff or old.

[Black02Silverado]

The first thing I would do is go and take all the ground wires off that you can find on the engine and frame and clean them up and make sure that they are making good contact. Also make sure the wires to the alternator are also clean and tight as well as the connections to the battery. It doesn't take much for a wire to be loose for it to act weird like this.

 

I would also make sure that all the wires are good up inside the casing of the wire, that there isn't any corrosion. I have see that happen as well. All seemed fine but the wires were bad up inside the casing from major corrosion.