Well, I had to use the AC in the jimmy today, its humid and hot, I turned it on, blows nice and cold. but I noticed my battery gauge dropped down. I have the digital dash, and it dropped down to the 5 lines in the solid green area, I would imagine that would be the red area on non digital gauges. it never goes below the 5 lines, it will go back to normal for a shot period, but mostly stays down there. I was thinking maybe my alt cant keep up and is going bad, any other suggestions?

 

Found this photo online just for reference, This is where the battery gauge drops to when the AC is on, never below that point, sometimes will go back to normal, but the battery light never comes on and blinks. I'm confuzzled

 

Has to be a bad connection by your blower motor. Lift the hood and check the area by the firewall and passenger side. There should be a 6? pin wire clip going in to the right of the blower motor, make sure these contacts are clean and also make sure your ground is connected firmly to a clean surface. The ground is on the blower motor itself.

If a loose connection is the issue, it causes the fan to draw more amps.

 

It does not do it when the heat is on, only when the AC is on. I will check that out though

 

Any other ideas? gonna check out a few things this weekend, one being the tensioner pulley

 

If it stays there, no matter what engine rpm, seriously looks like the alternator or else the connections to it.

If it's only at idle, then what is your rpm at that time?
tensioners a good idea but if you have no belt squeal...

 

I will check the connections to the alt, it stayed around the same when driving, the couple times I saw it go back to normal we were sitting in a fast food drive through.

I have a multi meter, How would I go about testing the alt with it?

And when checking the connections on the alt. Whats the best way to do that, I do not want to short anything out unhooking and checking the connection without doing something else

Thanks knowledge bank pettyfog

 

Just turn ac on and measure voltage at batt terminals. Should be about 14.5 on cold start @1000 rpm {when alt /engine /radiator warms voltage goes down}
Compare that to that idiot graph display.
If 14.5 not at battery ..
Take it to autozone and have them bench test it. AFTER they run the first test,Tell them what your problem is.