Hi glorious and wonderous peoples of BITOG. : P I remain ever grateful for the people who share their knowledge and opinions...
I have a 91 chevy caprice classic, TBI 5.0L V8 which i assume needs an alternator. The only way that I know this is that in the middle of winter when it was 20 below I tried driving it and all the sudden the battery/charge light started flickering and lighting up... and that it's 31 years old/pretty sure the alt has never been replaced. I parked it for the moment (driving my 11mpg pickup instead not being up to a mid-winter wrench job) but finally got it out of a snowbank with rising temperatures literally yesterday. It had been started 2-3 times in jan/feb to see if it would keep the battery charged up - and it actually did, ran 20+ minutes fine (tho I wasn't watching the light, I just started and left it while shoveling snow to see if it'd die or live).
Now that it's out of the snowbank it did fine on two test drives around town for 30 miles in 20 degree temperatures, i'll doublecheck it at an O'rielly's or something but even if it passes the alt test I can think of no reason the battery/charge light would come on. (this has only idiot lights, no gauges so I can't watch for flickers or such) So I don't trust it. I'd rather wait until summer but I have to drive this out of town overnight so a breakdown would suck.
I assume the default answer will be just replace it, just wondering if anyone has any other advice. Like on amazon I see "other" small block chevy V8 alternators for cheaper than the ones they recommend, but maybe I should stick with those it recommends for my car... Amazon has AC Delco for $90ish, Rock Auto has some for a little less, i'm just curious if there's any caveats or "if youre changing X you might as well change Y at the same time" things. (not looking to do a waterpump, but a new serpentine belt probly makes sense/I don't remember when I last changed it)
I realize i'm asking some questions that might have obvious answers but i'm a TBI survivor and that's what it's like now, sorry if I need some handholding or walking through the process.
I have a 91 chevy caprice classic, TBI 5.0L V8 which i assume needs an alternator. The only way that I know this is that in the middle of winter when it was 20 below I tried driving it and all the sudden the battery/charge light started flickering and lighting up... and that it's 31 years old/pretty sure the alt has never been replaced. I parked it for the moment (driving my 11mpg pickup instead not being up to a mid-winter wrench job) but finally got it out of a snowbank with rising temperatures literally yesterday. It had been started 2-3 times in jan/feb to see if it would keep the battery charged up - and it actually did, ran 20+ minutes fine (tho I wasn't watching the light, I just started and left it while shoveling snow to see if it'd die or live).
Now that it's out of the snowbank it did fine on two test drives around town for 30 miles in 20 degree temperatures, i'll doublecheck it at an O'rielly's or something but even if it passes the alt test I can think of no reason the battery/charge light would come on. (this has only idiot lights, no gauges so I can't watch for flickers or such) So I don't trust it. I'd rather wait until summer but I have to drive this out of town overnight so a breakdown would suck.
I assume the default answer will be just replace it, just wondering if anyone has any other advice. Like on amazon I see "other" small block chevy V8 alternators for cheaper than the ones they recommend, but maybe I should stick with those it recommends for my car... Amazon has AC Delco for $90ish, Rock Auto has some for a little less, i'm just curious if there's any caveats or "if youre changing X you might as well change Y at the same time" things. (not looking to do a waterpump, but a new serpentine belt probly makes sense/I don't remember when I last changed it)
I realize i'm asking some questions that might have obvious answers but i'm a TBI survivor and that's what it's like now, sorry if I need some handholding or walking through the process.