96 Astro van not charging

[4EyedTurd]

Father-in-laws van quit charging one day,he called and asked if I'd come change the alternator. I pulled it off and had it checked, and it checked out good but sounded like ass so we put a new one on. We jumped it off and it was back to charging, so he drove around for a while to charge the battery. Fast forward 2 weeks or so and he calls with the same issue, it's not charging. Besides the battery is there anything else to check.

Vehicle is a 96 Astro Van, 4.3? I think.

[JC316]

Where did you get the alternator at? I've had new ones go bad before, hell, I've had new ones bad out of the box.

[71chevellejohn]

I would guess bad parts too.

Also it should be a 4.3... I don't think they came with anything else those years.

[shumpertdavid]

My first suggestion is to charge the battery fully before even thinking about starting the van with the new alternator. Would you want to be awaken in the morning and immediately run a marathon at full speed. That's what you are asking of the alternator. It's forced to make maximum output until it feels the battery it at full capacity.

Second, the battery need to be tested after it's had plenty of time to have a full charge. A dead cell or internal issue will strain an alternator as well, similar to running it on a dead battery.

We learned the second part the hard way. A customers Suburban ate about 5 alternators in 8 or 9 months before we realized it had a damaged cell in the battery. We would always charge the battery prior to starting it and perform a load test which it always passed. We finally got smart and did individual cell test (it had removable caps) and found one really weak or dead compared to the other 5. We did find that if we did 2 or 3 load test within 15-30 seconds of each other that the battery would fall off sharply on voltage indicating an issue as well.

[orphan Shelby]

Was gonna answer similar to the first part. Second part is good info to cover some ass later. And make sure all cable ends are tight clean. Had many issus with poor fitting cable end repairs.

[Sleeper]

I still say alternator. The wife had one that did that shit. Would start fine and charge, but go down the road and it did all sorts of wierd shit.

[shumpertdavid]

I do tighten a lot of side posts that weren't installed tight or the battery bolts are stripped. The bolt threads are extremely soft to keep from pulling the threads out of the battery.