92 Celica Electrical Problems - Where do I start

[kewlaidkidd]

Hi guys,

A few weeks back, I was leaving work and my coworker pointed out to me that I had no brake lights. I took the car home and tried to find out what was wrong with it, but had a trip that I had to take overnight through the country.

When making this trip, my Celica died, first losing lights, then completely powering down. I let the car sit for a few moments and noticed an electical burning smell. However I was literally in an area that had no signal or civilization for at least ten miles.

After sitting, I powered the car back up and made it the ten miles to civilization, before everything powered down again.

I was able to park the car at a friends house and let it sit as we tried to figure out what was wrong.

Well initially, I knew the car needed a new alternator belt, so I changed that. Then we tested the alternator and it was shot, so I replaced the alternator.

However once I replaced the alternator, there was no power going back to the battery to recharge the battery. We limped on this batter for a few miles, then my friend who was with me switched batteries from his car to mine (his battery is very high powered) and we made it home with no stops (90 miles).

The alternator was still not charging the battery. So we took it back to the Advance and had it tested. The alternator tested out fine. However we exchanged it anyways to be on the safe side, then had the new one tested. Everything was fine.

We took the alternator back to the car and replaced it. It still put out no charge to the battery.

The next day we took the car to the shop. They looked at it and they are not import savvy and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. They said that it was probably the alternator.

We looked up wiring diagrams online and figured out that the Ignition Light Wire was not getting the proper voltage running through it.

Here are the specs of the wiring voltage:

The switched has about 12.5 volts when the car is on.
The permanent has 12.5 volts all the time
The ignition lite wire only had 3.4 volts

Temporarly we ran a jumper from the switched wire to the ignition light wire, which is what has made it work for a while.

However this past weekend, I was back at square one. The car just stopped running on the way home. Same as before - first losing lights then just shutting off. Luckily I was only about ten miles from home, so I did what I did the first time and let it sit, then gunned it home. I made it home right when it was getting close to cutting off again.

Before I take it to the shop. Does anyone know if the actual fix for this car and not our rigged way is something that can easily be fixed on our end before we put more money into this car?

Is there any other problem that I could be having.

Thank you for your input.

[123crazy]

I had a problem similar to thr. And it ended up being a wire gping to the alternator was riped out from the aocket.

[BottleCapBandit]

Yup, Just run a hot from alt to battery. You will bypass everything that way. Check ALL your fuses. That is why the brake lights didnt work. No chimes either.

[kewlaidkidd]

The brake lights are actually fixed. There was a short in the Cruise Control.

We did the hotwire, but that is no longer keeping the charge to the alternator because it started draining on Monday night. It had worked for about two weeks and then just stopped working.

We can't figure out why its not working any longer.