Topic: Charge and Brake Light

[blyota91]

My 91 4x4 22re had a sort of bad alternator for quite awhile.  It was charging alright, but it would occasionally spike to around 16 or 17 volts, and as you can imagine the charge light and brake light would flicker on from time to time or stay on for awhile.  So I went to a parts store and bought a reman alternator and put it in.  And from then on the charge and brake light are constantly lit.  I have no blown fuses and the alternator is charging properly.  I've heard of but have not seen in any wiring diagrams a charge relay.  Could this be the problem?  I also have remnants of a 89 2wd with a 22r, if it is the relay would this truck also have it?  I searched through the archives some and couldn't find quite what I was looking for.

Andrew

[WHITE_TRASH]

Sounds like you have a bad reman.  Warranty the one you have and have them test it as/or replace it with another that they test before you take it.  Toyotas are notorious in the reman world and they have a steady suppy of bad ones trust me I worked parts, maybe 3 in 10 was any good.

[blyota91 [OP]]

It charges fine, I don't know what it puts out for amperage, but I ran it all last winter and never had any problems not starting, and here in Vermont we get some pretty cold conditions.

[BigMike]

Hey this sounds more like a bad voltage regulator.. Is it located in the Alternator on our trucks??

Also, I don't know all about it, Marlin does - he is a genius at Alternators as he learned everything about them and used to modify stock alternators to create welders from them, and this was LONG BEFORE premier power welder and the like, I think Marlin was one of the first people to do this, this was before he came up with the Crawler, so around 1993 or so.. Anyways, my point is that Marlin once told me about the levels or diodes or something and if one goes bad, it will still charge ok, but it can bleed voltage accross the levels and cause the charge light to come on regardless of charging performance. So it could just be that the ahhhhhhhh I remember, the rectifier might be bad. Ask the store to check out the rectifier!

[blyota91 [OP]]

Well if the rectifier was bad then it would be producing mostly AC voltage and I think I would have some other issues then.  I'll do an AC voltage check sometime soon and see what I get.  So is this not related to the charge relay or could it be something to do with the instrument panel.  I find it odd that both the brake and charge light are on.  I know my e-brake is off all the way and my fluid level is fine so it isn't that.

[BigMike]

I don't know much about the dash in your '91 - but just to throw out some more suggestions - when I was doing the wiring on my '81 on the dash, I found out that the silly inst. cluster uses some diodes that control a sensor light along with the charge light in one voltage direction, and just the charge light in the other voltage direction (diode control). But for some crazy reason when the check light from my 3RZ ecu would ground out the circuit, both the sensor light (that I am using as my check engine lamp [MIL]) and the charge light would come on. It took me a while and I eventually gave up and jabbed my sodering iron straight through it and killed it. Now the circuits are completely seperated and my lights work great.

All I could surmise is that the sensor light is connected to the "poor mans ecu" '81 carburated emissions control ecu, and if the sensor light comes on then so does the charge, but of course if you are just having a charging prob them just that light would come on, but when I had it wired up, for some reason BOTH VOLTAGE DIRECTIONS were causing both lights to come on some how. it was like a voltage leak in the dash or something??

Good luck-