This 1996 Acura 2.5 TL came in with the complaint that the battery goes dead. The customer said that he thinks that something may not be hooked up properly because the alternator worked before and this is the second alternator that has been put on since the engine was changed. I confirmed the no charge condition. I was glad that the alternator was right on top and easy to get to.
I had to removed the intake air tube from the throttle body. The I could reach may hand around the back side of the alternator to depress the clip and remove the harness connector.
In looking at a wiring diagram I saw that ignition power comes to the black/yellow wire from fuse #4 in the under dash fuse box to the vertical terminal on the left hand side of the plug in the picture below. I also noted that the same fuse supplies power to the charge indicator bulb which arrives at the connector on the white/blue wire and it is the vertical terminal at the right side of the connector in the picture below. In checking I found no power on either wire. A definite problem for this charging system.
The other two wires in the connector go to the engine control computer. Their colors are white/red and white/green. I did not bother checking these wires as I knew that I already had a problem on the first two wires that I had checked.
Going with the information from the customer and what I had gathered, I started tracing the harness as it went away from the alternator to the rest of the vehicle. It did not take long before I came upon this connector at the passenger side of the radiator. If you click on the picture below and enlarge it you will see that one of the wires that is pulled back is a black/yellow wire.
The plastic locks that hold the wire in place in the connector had been striped out. I figured from someone pulling the engine and forgetting to disconnect the wiring until it is too late. Anyways I had to resort to an old tried and true repair technique, Glue. I lightly coated the seal and base of the terminal with glue and used needle nosed pliers to push the wire back into the connector. I repeated this on all of the damaged wires at this connector. There were only two but that was enough.
After allowing the glue to dry thoroughly I put everything back together and checked the charging system. Back to charging. I finished charging the battery back up with a battery charger and wrapped this one up.
