hey guys, a couple weeks ago we had a blizzard here and i wad to go out and run some errands. Well the road i was on was drifted really bad and i had no choice but to hit a pretty big drift. Anyway, i hit the drift and immediately my voltage gauge dropped to 8 volts and my check gauges light came on. Anyway, i wasn't sure at that point what had happened, so initial thought was either belt slipped, or came off, but i had power steering still. So to make sure, i drove a couple miles to our Advance Auto and had them check the charging system, it was charging 14.4v, which is normal. Anyway, at that point, i wasn't sure what had caused it, only assuming since the motor, alt, air filter etc. were covered in snow something had gotten wet. Hour later or so, i went to McD for lunch, shut truck off and went in to eat. Came back out and volt gauge was reading correctly.

Now comes the weird part, the voltage gauge read fine until last sat, then it randomly dropped to 8 volts again with check gauges light coming on. I got to a stop sign, shut the truck off and restarted it, volt gauge came up to around 10 volts and stayed there for a while, then dropped back to 8 with check gauges light coming on again. Drove the rest of the way to where i was going (i was on interstate with pyro at 800) and shut it down, started it after coming back out of store and it was fine. It has dome the same crap again maybe 2 or 3 times. Thurs. i checked under the hood, i saw nothing out of ordinary, no loose plugs, ground wire on Alt. was dry and tight, couldn't get plug off back of alt. to check that (any special way to unplug that?) Anyway, since it happened Thurs. it hasn't again since yet. However, what else could i check that wold cause this to happen, i don't like having a gauge drop on me with a dinging bright red check gauges light on the IC.

Please give me some ideas guys, or if its happened to you tell me where i can start looking for the root cause.

Thanks and sorry for the long post!!!

 

Look underneath for loose wires, wet connections??

 

what would i look for "underneath" the truck, id assume if it was a loose wire, it wouldnt come back up after shutting truck down and restarting. Not sure how a wet wire/connection would react, but it sits in a heated garage at night, so realistically everything SHOULD have ample time to warm up/dry out.

 

Well you plowed a drift, and if it damaged anything, it would be underneath the truck.

 

yeah i know that, but what would be under the truck that would cause the gauge to read what it does. I mean, i guess im just kinda lost at this point.

 

Look up by the crank position sensor. IIRC, it relays to the alt.

 

ah ha, ok, wheres CPS?

 

It's right behind the starter or right by the harmonic balancer.

 

Don't think you have the crank position sensor, just the cam position sensor located underneath the VP44. If it's related to that though, your tach will drop as well when you have the charging issues. My guess would be a bad ground (wire pulled, etc...) or moisture in the connectors somewhere. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if it were at the alt, but it could be just about anywhere. Time to start methodically cleaning and inspecting your charging system...

 

maybe one of your spark plugs is grounding out, just kidding, i'd check all your grounds and stuff, have you hooked up a code reader or anything? it should come up with something