Alternator rebuild/hicas woes

[mfroese]

Hello all, long time reader/lurker, seldom poster.

I may need to find a good alternator rebuild shop in the lower rainland, eastern side of Langley preferred.

I've been experiencing hicas issues on my rb20 since Saturday and I've narrowed it down to a faulty alternator, I think. This hicas light only engages at idle, and when I monitor volts its dipping below 11.3v. If I rev the engine I get 12-13 volts and everything is happy. I did an alternator test by removing my battery connections while running, and it continued to run, so it isn't completely shot.

This happened right after doing a oil filter relocation kit installation which kind of puzzles me, The only thing I can pinpoint that happened, was the power wire from my capacitor in my trunk, touched metal in my engine bay and sparked when I was handling the fuse holder to fit in the oil block mount. I've never had the hicas light appear before, and this started occurring immediately pulling out of the garage. I've since driven the car home and out to Langley and it still is occurring, that should have given ample time to recharge the cap should it had discharged.

Any comments/advice is greatly appreciated. I've daily driven my skyline for 3 years and have enjoyed every day of it and want to continue to do so.

[DreadedFist]

Is the battery new? Always try to see if it's the cheaper parts first :P Are the terminals fine/are the grounds all good? Although it sounds like it could be alternator if reving the engine up increases bat voltage. Is the alternator belt fine?

I'm just throwing stuff out here, you can yell at me if I'm not helping.

[mfroese]

Battery is within a year old, it did drain once but I trickle charged it back to full. I've checked over the terminals/grounds, didn't see anything corroded or torn. As a test, I'm going to pickup an alternator from dah_hunter's parts pile and throw that one in. I need to check the voltage coming out of the alternator to make sure I'm not losing the volts inline to the battery. Worst case I'll get one of the alternators rebuilt and have a good working alternator. I pulled the amp going to my capacitor/amps and it still dips below the 12v range, thats with A/C off, lights off and face plate off the deck.

[mfroese]

Update: Threw in the alternator from Dah_hunter, now idles at 13v and runs around 13.5v so I'm still going to get my original alt rebuilt. What a process to get at the freaking alternator, required removing: bumper, lower rock guard in center, intake piping to FMIC, battery, radiator, fan shroud and clutch fan. Thankfully I could take the day off work and get it done in a day.