Ok, so all I know is that my car is freakin' dead and all that I did was put in some JDM headlights, high beams, and tails. My battery was old so I replaced that, I figured it was just that so I bought a new one today and it started up fine, but the tac is dead...but the lights work for the dash. So after a long day, I got back into my car and everything started to get dim again. Then it died. There was just no power for anything. Did I blow a fuse? Is the issue with my alternator? I don't know much about cars so I SOL for now. Can anyone please help!? Your attention to this matter is much appreciated.

-Triscuit

Was your battery light on in the car?

You need to first establish if your battery has any power.
If no, check your battery connections.
If good, see if your alt is charging.
If yes, check your fuses.

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How do you check if the alternator is charging? My battery was old and ****ty so I just replaced it anyways, and it actually started and ran for a good half a day.

-Triscuit

Well, you can measure the output voltage on the stud.
You can also get the alt tested.
The battery light is a good indicator, if it's on, the alt is probably not charging. If it's off, it probably is.
However, that's not a 100% guarantee.....

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Alright, so I just heard back from the guy I know that has a shop in MD, apparently when we wired up the JDM heads we did an awesome "low-tech" job that was horrid; basically what could have been happening was the wires could have been arching b/c apparently my friend that was helping didn't individually wrap the wires, but wrapped them together with tape near the lamp...which is a no go. So, now that the headlights are in working order (should be) i'm still having issues, so we're going to order an alternator and that should clear things up.

-Triscuit

(I guess I'm not selling my car after all.)

So we had the alternator changed out and it didn't make any difference, apparently we're just not seeing where the issue is. I guess it's just not getting power somewhere. Anyhow, I turned the car into Toyota this afternoon so we'll see what they say. I didn't get charged for the alternator, my buddy hooked me up.

Has anyone ever had any issues with hooking up their JDM heads?

-Triscuit

its probably something you did while you were cutting and wiring its grounding on something or other.....

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That's the general concensus. Now Toyota is telling me that my alternator is dead, which is $450. blah.

-Triscuit

I would take out the battery, completely charge it up and then remove the new headlights and replace with the old. it sounds like either the wiring, or even some faulty wiring in the headlights itself, since this all started when you had them changed out. If your car ran fine for half a day, it seems like the alternator was charging it, but then leaving it sitting for a while, the battery drained.

Also... an easy way to check it....

Get a multimeter and test the load on the battery. When the car is off, there should be very minimal drain, just small stuff for clock and memory. If there is significant drain, start removing fuses. look to see which fuse releases the drain on the battery. Once you find that, you will have your culprit.

Just my 2 censt....

This post has been edited by Manny: Feb 23, 2007 - 1:31 PM

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Thanks. I just spoke with Toytoa and my alternator will be put in today probably (apparently it was totally dead). So, hopefully that does the trick, if that doesn't work, I honestly don't know what I"m going to do b/c I leave the country soon and I was going to bring it with me, but....I don't know.

-Triscuit

That sucks.... I hope that the alternator swap fixes the problems....

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Yessir! Toyota replaced the alternator and that seemed to fix my issue! Also, apparently I screwed the [easiest install in the world] install of my JDM tails. So now my dash and windows work...although my left window died today, so I found a junkyard with 2 6th gen Celicas and i'm hitting that back up on Thursday, due to incorrect tools today! I also found a few 5th gens and a supra there if anyone's interested?

-Triscuit