Alternator going bad?

[1badgmc]

The last time I had an alternator go bad was on my '72 Duster ages ago. I knew it was done for by the ultra-dim headlights. So forgive me if I'm a little clueless here.

The Suburban is giving me starting issues, but the battery tests fine, which leads me to suspect the alternator. Now, something I have noticed with the truck is that at night when the truck is running and the doors are open, I can see the courtesy lights flickering slightly. I notice the same thing with the parking lights as well. When the truck is turned off and these lights are on, they are constant and not flickering. Could this be caused by a failing alternator?

 

[CodyB]

What your seeing is the alternating current that is naturally produced by an alternator leaking through the diodes, which convert the ac to dc. The best way to test for that is to take a multimeter and set it to ac volts, then set one lead on the positive lug on the alt, and the ground on the alt case with it running, if it's registering much above 0.2 vac then chances are one of the diodes has let go. The good part is you can actually buy the diode rectifier pack and change it yourself. YouTube has a ton of videos on alt repair, if yours is on a 96-98 and into the 00's on burbs and tahoes it should be a GM AD series alt, AD230 or AD244 the ones with the external fan are the older CS series alts.

If you can solder, you can fix it, a soldering gun works best since it's larger leads that need to be soldered well.

 

[1badgmc]

I am ill-equipped for that crap. The alternator is gone with a new one in its place now.

 

[DRAGGIN95]

Did your burb use a cs 144, or ad 230, I just wondered because our 99 burb has a cs 144 factory, but I have seen them with the ad 230 as well.