pchansen1

Update: I've noticed that when I let the clutch out with the brake applied (no gas) and purposely drag the engine down to almost a stall, the car's voltage drops to near zero. The lights dim and the radio pops and shuts off. If the engine is allowed to recover to idle RPM, the voltage recovers. If the engine stalls, again the voltage recovers via the battery. Is this normal or should the batter "take over" as the alternator RPM decays to the point where it's no longer producing any voltage?

Paul
95 C2

centerpunch

It could also be the other battery cable. Make sure the positive lead is clean and tight on the battery.

pchansen1

It could also be the other battery cable. Make sure the positive lead is clean and tight on the battery.
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Paul

Will do! Anyone else???

pchansen1

I finally had a chance to take the battery (not the car) down to my local shop (actually a Les Schwab tire store for those familiar) and load tested the battery. It checked out fine except for that fact that it was only 45% charged. Wierd. Anyway, I took everyone's advice and replaced the grounding strap with a generic 4 gauge insulated strap. WOW! What a difference! I got almost a full volt increase when checking voltage across the terminals with the engine at idle. I'm now getting about 13.8 as opposed to 12.97. All symptoms are now gone but I still think it's a little too soon to call this problem licked as the problem has been intermitant so I'll keep you all posted. For those of you curious, additional symptoms that I've noticed in the past few days have included... Flickering HID's and running lights, A/C not cycling on, and erratic idling- these are in addition to the ones mentioned in my first post. It would sure be nice if I did fix a major electrical fault for $10.00!