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2006 dodge 2500 6speed 4x4. Alternator suddenly quits charging. Had the batteries and alternator tested. Batteries where good but alternator failed. Replaced the alternator and it’s still not charging. Replaced all 4 terminals and cleaned everything. I keep reading about these “fuseable links” but can’t seem to find any great info. I tossed the alternator power wire like an idiot. Because I thought it was just a normal wire. So temporarily I used 3 strands of 12g fuseable link wire to replace it. At the same time as replacing the fuseable link I tied in a 16g ground wire from the alternator plug to a ground on the inner fender and bam the alternator is charging. I firmly believe it’s the ground I added that did the trick. So my question is... does that mean the ground going from the alternator to the ECM is broken somewhere between? Where can I find the “fuseable link” wire, because I can only seem to find 12g and smaller from parts stores. Also, would this cause a rough idle? Like my signature says, I’m on a fresh rebuild make 1,500 miles on it. I put bosh reman injectors in and had the cp3 tested at the same time from a local shop. The truck fires up without hesitation and runs solid for about 3 seconds and then the fuel pressure dips so low the truck will stumble and die out. If you give it a little throttle it will stay running and eventually the fuel pressure stabilizes and it will clear up. I’ve also noticed Some fuel residue on the high pressure line/fitting coming out of the cp3 and some fuel residue at the base of the fuel pressure relief on the rail. I’m assuming that’s my issue and it’s letting air in the system? I put a new fpr on the rail a few months back and it never had any issue. I can post the idle/ fuel issue in a separate thread if needed. Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

Hello, new to the forum To get started here I bought my truck about 6 months ago (99 dodge cummins) first cummins. And everything seemed fine for a couple months then the park break and ABS lights came on, didnt think much of it as for the truck still ran perfectly fine a few weeks later I start getting this problem of idle jumping around and speedometer jumping around while driving and it jumping in and out of overdrive. (im guessing) Then just from driving around like the dumb kid I am (not being very nice to my truck) I lost my transmission, had it rebuilt by RedLine Transmissions in Boise ID. When I got it back the park break and ABS lights where still on and I still had this jumping around problem. After actually meeting Michael S. Nelson (mopar1973man) in Wieser ID. He told me it was my altinator going bad and to get it fixed before it ruins my PCM. Since then I have replaced the altinator twice. Both times I replaced it with ones you get from NAPA. Last weekend i replaced the altinator drove it all week with no issues other than the park break and ABS lights and the jumping around problem. Till this weekend after driving around Boise the check gauges lights come on and I have low voltage down to 8-10 ish volts drove it to NAPA and I fried (over heated) the altinator due to bad batteries (had the batteries checked) bought new batteries and new altinator no changes still getting check gauges light and low voltage reading on the dash gauge

I have a '02 SLT Laramie Ram 3500 dually with 5.9L 24V tubo engine and an odd voltage reading problem. When I start the engine the volt meter rises slowly to a little over 14 volts & then slowly falls back down to 11 - 12 volts before rising again to 14 volts. If I have the headlights on, they dim as the volts fall & brighten up as the volt reading rises. It does this several times and usually stabilizes when the engine reaches operating temps. Is this something I should be concerned about or is this normal? What could cause this?

I took my boys fishing Fontenelle Reservoir in southwest Wyoming over the past several days and wanted to give my opinion on the batteries that I recently put in my trailer. In July I bought 2 Energizer EGC2-122 (6V/232 amp hour) batteries from Sam's Club. I have taken the trailer out a couple of times since I bought them but only for a couple of days at a time. We spent 5 days and 4 nights in camp with no ability to recharge the batteries (I don't have a generator or solar panels, yet.) I was nervous about them lasting the trip so I tried to be as conservative as possible and as much as 2 young boys will allow. The highs were in the 50's and 60's but the lows were in the low to mid 20's and it felt it for sure. I kept the thermostat low at night while we slept so as to not kill my power, but ever being conservative the furnace ran quite a bit. I have a Mr Heater that I run inside the trailer in the morning to warm things up and that helped to take the chill off. After I got camp set up the batteries were sitting at 12.7 vdc and yesterday just as I was pulling out I measured them again and they were at 12.2 vdc. Not bad at all in my opinion. Granted, I am not using the power that some use. I tried to use the lights as little as possible, but the we did run the radio in the trailer about 4-5 hours a day and I was half convinced my boys were going to wear out the water pump--we are still working on showing them how to not turn the water on full blast to wash their hands. So all-in-all, I would recommend these batteries to anyone that may be looking. I am going to look into a solar panel kit. It would have been nice to have kept the trailer warmer and knowing that they will get some sort of recharge throughout the day. I guess I'll put that on my letter to Santa. It was a great trip for Father and Sons. I think I may have an issue with the thermostat in the truck but other than that I have nothing to complain about. Here is a picture of my youngest son and his 19" rainbow. Kind of makes it all worth it.

Ok Gang... I'm looking for a bit of help on diagnosing a charging issue. Been a busy day for fire calls today and on my way home from this last fire call I was noticing on the SG II my charge voltage is low and erratic. It still within spec of 13.5 to 14.5 volts but it bouncing a bit. With my lights all going its hover right at 13.5 to 13.6 which is usual for a charge voltage. Then it might bounce up to 14.0 to 14.1 then fall again... My first though is field brushes are wore out... Still running stock batteries 8 years old... No codes either... Now here is the kicker I need to do this without throwing a ton of money at parts guessin' I don't want to blow my Christmas Cash on repairs now... HELP!

Well, joined the forum back in Nov... had been working on plotting out our tune up/ preventative & maintenance plans and before we got anywhere within driving the truck an additional 500 miles at most we have MAJOR ISSUES... needless to say we have have the truck parked in the driveway since we put new tires on it at the end of November, we have had to start it a few times to move it for snow removal and driveway access issues... So here goes the saga of problems... this fall we noticed that we were having issues with the truck shifting around 45 mph... after much reading on this forum, I do believe that it probably is the same torque lock/ converter issue that many have been having. So, I had been calling around to different auto part stores to research alternators as a place to start... My husband also informed me that I was not the only one who had replaced the batteries in the truck in the last year or so (It would have been nice if he would have told me that a little sooner, since I am the more mechanical of us)... We had also been fighting with the 4wd for about a year... The mechanic that we were using supposedly replaced some of the parts but I do not know which ones bc he did not record it in the system and we had issues with the other work that he said he had done at the time but upon closer inspection did not do. My brother and I traced all the vacuum lines and made sure none of them were dirty/clogged/ disconnected etc.. one or two of them were dislodged/ loose so we cleaned them made sure they weren't clogged and reattached them . We also checked the diaphragm and it seemed to move in/ out easily as well... but we did not have time to get any further in diagnosing, before many more issues started to arise... My husband had a training seminar in Denver and we knew we needed new tires so we were able to combine the trip, I didn't have time before he left to change the oil so he insisted on going to a grease monkey as well while he was down there... then literally as my husband was driving home from Denver which is about an 1 hr 30 min drive up a mountain pass; a slue of other issues started... Unfortunately I wasn't in the truck at the time and my husband is not the best at paying attention to subtle vehicle noise/ performance differences. TO all the guys out there, I love my husband very much and in no way am I trying to "dis" him, we have just been together long enough that we both recognize each others strengths and weaknesses... so back to the drive back home per my husband's account; he called me and says "Sarah I think something is wrong with the truck, if I accelerate past about 60 the vehicle will not shift, just revs highier and higher and I have never seen the rpm gauge go so high..." My reaction was, well SLOW DOWN, if it;'s not shifting it's not going to just because u give it more fuel and rev the engine. Secondly, I asked him to check the temp gauge (unfortunately, we have not installed additional gauges that I had already ordered.. so we still just have stock) and make sure that he didn't need to pull over... he responded with well I am not sure what it's normally at but it doesn't seem unusually high. Well, how about the other gears? It was sluggish to get started, even when it was warmed up... So, when he got home we parked the truck and the next day I took it out to drive it to see if I could get a better feel for what was going on. First off, the truck wouldn't start... it had been cold that night probably around -10, but the truck block heater was plugged in and when I went to drive it the temp had already warmed up to around 30... when it gets that cold I have found that the truck will usually start easier if I turn the key and wait for the "wait to start" light to turn off two or three times before actually cranking the engine. However, even with this technique (which I realize is a red flag in itself) the truck would click click click try to turn over and just wouldn't go... so I got out the trust battery charger and usually if I just put it on high for less than 5 mins the truck will start right away... no such luck... so I left the charger on for about 30 mins before it would start (when it did there was quite a bit of smoke, although I don;t remember if it was black or white). Once started, the truck idle was very slow (even more than usual) so instead of going inside, I sat in the cab and rev'ed the engine for the concern of gumming etc. It took about 5 mins before I felt comfortable to let the truck sit and run while I wasn't watching it... I let it run for about 10-15 mins before I got in for the test drive. I immediately noticed that when backing up that the truck was acting very sluggish...we live right on main st in our town which is actually a HWY, so we have quite a bit of traffic and pulling out you have to be careful and quick... Which is why I panicked when I shifted into D, hit the accelerator and the truck acted like I merely let off the brake and barely pressed the accelerator, when in reality I nearly floored it. luckily we have a second lane & parking shoulder that starts at our driveway and goes through town, so I was able to creep into it... about 2 blocks of creeping with medium pressure on the accelerator the truck seemed to kick into gear and started to accelerate more normally between about 20-55mph then I did notice that once I reached 60mph I could understand what my husband was experiencing the day prior. After driving just to the next lil town which is 1.5 miles away and back I parked the truck... called our friend that is a mechanic and just started working at the garage literally across the street from our house and started reading... Our mechanic friend said he would help us out after work at the garage (so awesome to have access to the lifts & tools)... but before we could look at the truck our other vehicle decided to have a few issues that we needed to address first (so we would have a vehicle to use), we were able to plug in the code reader and at first no codes were coming up... then we had one or two codes pop up but when he looked them up there were a slue of possibilities and I lost my notebook where I wrote them down, ugg... i blame the chaos on the holidays... We decided that a good place to start would be to change the trans solenoids, replace trans filter w/ seal kit, flush trans and new fluid. Which we were planning on doing tomorrow... in preparation for finally tackling this truck I have been reading, researching and pricing a plan of action this week. Yesterday I did order a TIMBO apps, since it was something that I was thinking about anyway... but I am just getting a little overwhelmed with what parts to address especially with the current issues that I think are somewhat inner related and I fear we will have more issues as I have read through the forum bc we have had above average luck with not needing many of the issues that people have had with this truck at much lower mileages we are at about 203k... So, I need some advice... Gauges- I want basic mechanical gauges in a pillar (EGT, fuel pressure w/ low pressure light, trans temp)... I tried to order some in NOV but had problems finding a matching set, that was reasonably priced but had good reviews (quality). It shouldn't be that difficult... so if anyone has bought them recently and has a source suggestion, please let me know! AirDog II- What do I need to order in addition to the Airdog II to install on truck? Our truck specs are on signature.. Fuel Pump- Raptor: Which model? the factory replacement (FRRP)? RP-100 or RP-150? From what I have been reading and knowing that we use the truck to tow our tool trailer & our flat bed trailer, as well as hauling all sorts of other stuff up and down mountain dirt roads, I was thinking that it would be a better idea to install the RP-100 and take the time to mount it rather than just doing the factory replacement. Any Thoughts? Automatic Transmission: What do you recommend to do while we are in there replacing the solenoids, flushing, replacing filter & kit, new fluid... adjusting bands... WHAT ELSE CAN I DO TO PROLONG THE LIFE OF THE TRANS/ fix issues? Or should I be considering a total rebuild or new one? (I am hoping that I can prolong the current one so I can budget some other stuff first)- If we do replace, I think we may convert to a manual trans set up.... Sorry this is SUCH A NOVEL, I just thought I would give as much detail as possible since I am out of my comfort zone... THANK you in advance for any help/ suggestions you can provide! At this point we need 2wd to work before 4wd!!

Ok Gang...I've got a project on a 2002 Dodge Cummins 2500 (no not mine). I've installed a fuel pressure gauge it holding 15-16 PSI at idle and about 11-12 PSI at WOT but at low speeds that I've seen. Here is the problem the codes have P0216 code present no others but its got a partial dead pedal. You can mat the pedal to the floor and it barely rolls along at 5-15 MPH then all of sudden like the ECM or the VP44 wakes up and hang on she powering up. There is no codes for APPS sensor so I'm not considering the APPS sensor. But now I know that 2 cases of ECM failure I seen where the throttle is limited (CajFlynn is one of them). Knowing both the ECM and VP44 are $1,000 dollar items I need to figure out a way of verifying this problem for the owner. Help us out gang!

Well I finally gone in done it... I yanked out the factory batteries and replaced them with a set of WalMart Batteries. I was shocked I to find that the Group 27 batteries where only $89 bucks a piece and they are 850 CCA batteries. I was smart and brought my tools along and changed them right in the parking lots and wheeled the tired stock batteries in the store and collected my $18 bucks worth of core charge. I got to admit the charging voltage is a bit lower and the starter seems to spin much easier. But after getting nearly 10 years from the stock batteries it was time to retire them.

I learned a valuable lesson this pat week and thought I'd share it in case there are others who don't know this. While I was hunting last week I noticed that my truck was slow to start. It sounded like dead battery. It got worse to the point where I had to have it jumped. It then got so bad that even jumping it with another diesel (two known good batteries) wouldn't turn it over any faster. After calling Mike from Arizona where I live, and also talking to a couple other guys, I was directed toward the starter and the starter cable. I removed the starter and went to an O'Rielly's to have it tested. On their machine it tested good. So, I went back to camp (50+ miles) and reinstalled it. Of course it still didn't work so I continued troubleshooting the connections. Everything OHMed out good so I called a third guy (couldn't reach Mike the 2nd time) who said that the testers at these stores don't put a load on the started and that it was bad. Long story short, I bought a new starter and it fixed my problem. Following the repair I tried to beat a snow storm but didn't and ended up whecking my truck...but that's another story.

Hey ya'll,i am back with an update.:banghead: So after a year of having no symptoms since 1/28/11, i am having symptoms again. Not really sure what is going on. I have not gone thru any of the routine troubleshooting steps just yet. I am back for some more schooling!!!! So now the situation is that i am having dead pedal above 70 MPH. I can punch the gas on the highway, tranny goes thru its automatic gear shifts, than if i try to accelerate above 70, nothing. --- Update to the previous post... please read other thread!

i recently left the key in my switch with the switch on. the next morning my batteries were dead. i mean stone cold dead the key in the switch bell would not ding. got it jumped of and as long as the air temp stayed above 45 she would start no problem. they definately do not have much reserve power in them. will draining them that low kill them? they are 4 years old from advance auto, silver

Well I learned a valuable lesson between yesterday and today! when you need a battery replace them both becasue the other will be shortly behind!:banghead: With another cold snap and snow my truck leaves me at work catching a ride with a friend of mine. You must remember this is my first diesel so this winter has been trying for me and this truck!:banghead::banghead: sorry for the rant just been a trying week.

Okay guys my next purchase are going to be batteries.... Exciting I know but they are getting weak enough that if I don't have the truck plugged in, the grids pull them down too much and the starter won't spin fast enough to start the truck... Had this happen to me the other day which sucked b/c the folks and I were going to go into town to shop/eat. My question is, what do you guys recommend for batteries? I've had decent luck with Die Hards but I'm not 100% sold on them in my '75 Chevy. I'm thinking about Autozone Duralast Gold top b/c they are well priced and easy to get. Plus they've got a good warranty and I've had great luck with them in my '71 VW and one of the Cummins's batteries is one and is 4.5 yrs old. But also kicking around Interstate, Harvest King (Atwoods), and any other place. What do you guys think?:shrug:I've also thought about Optimas but they are so expensive and I've been told they aren't as good as they used to be b/c the plant moved or something.... was told that by the owner of Barry's Diesel Service in Winfield... He seems like a good guy, but never really dealt with him other than when I've bought some silicone heater hose and a piece of 4" exhaust pipe... I do know they are just down right expensive and I'm a poor, almost jobless, college student...:duh:Thanks,Winslow

Just took my truck to the voltex battery today and had new batteries installed, I figured its about time the old ones were 6 years old and weak. They put it 2 of the 65 group size blems (2nds) for $35.00 each, left there with $75.00 out the door with a 1 year warranty . I work at advance auto parts, part time and they are $90.00 each with my discount. If anyone has a battery store that sell blems that will save you a lot of money.

ok - don't laugh How do you tell a battery really requires changing and won't hold a charge anymore. To be honest - I don't know Along with my stalling issue - my starting seems to be harder - and it seems like a battery. I added 2 stroke (for general reasons) and drove for like 20 miles to let the alternator charge her up. Got back ..... and turned engine off with lights still on. Saw the voltage needle drop pretty quick from 14V to around 10V. The battery says 10/07 .......... no other indicators If I need a battery - how to tell if 1 or 2 ? - and any recommendations on where what to buy ? --- Update to the previous post... Found this http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/001227.html There is actually 3 different ways to test the battery. One would be a voltmeter to check voltage. This requires a some what reliable voltmeter or multimeter. I think the full charge voltage is 12.7 to 12.9 volts. If the voltage is only 10 volts or so, that is an easy indication of a bad cell in the battery. That checks voltage but it really doesn't mean that the battery can handle a heavy load. It may handle electronics(Radio, GPS or VHF radio) but may fail to start an outboard or run a trolling motor for very long. The second method is with the load tester. The load tester can be used even if it still installed in the boat or vehicle. It is as simple as connecting the clamps to the positive and negative posts. A spring loaded toggle switch is actuated for 5 seconds and a reading is displayed on the meter. It places a dummy load of close to 100 amps on the battery. You do this while watching the meter on the load tester. It is calibrated in voltage and if voltage readings scare you, it has a scale which reads BAD, WEAK or OK. 5 seconds is long enough time to be engaging the starter motor on an outboard or vehicle. If you boat motor takes longer or if it takes multiple tries to start the motor, that can be simulated with the tester also. Just actuate the switch on the tester to mimic what your starting procedure is on your boat. I like this test. It comes as close to what your battery actually needs to do, to produce the CURRENT(not voltage) to turn the starter. The third way is by measuring the specific gravity of the electrolyte. This is the most accurate way to test a battery, but most people don't want the extra work involved to accomplish accurate results. You need a temperature compensating hydrometer to do this. They are available at some auto parts stores for $20-40. Guessing then its not something I can do at home to well without some load tester