My truck usually sits most of the time because of an extremely long commute. Today I needed to use it because of an impending snow storm.

The truck started right up and I proceeded to drive to work when I noticed the volt gauge was only reading 12 volts, I was already closer to work so I kept going all the time watching and expecting my headlights to start to dim, they didn`t.

When I arrived at work I shut the truck off for a couple of minutes just to see if it would restart, when I turned the key on the "wait to start" light came on and stayed on for more than a minute (Seemed odd seeing how I just drove for more that an hour and a half) aanyway the truck did start.

I just ordered a new CTM because my old one quit a few weekes back, would a bad CTM have anything to do with this? Could it be a heavy draw? Grid heater possibly? I know the alternator has been very slow to charge the last few times I used the truck so I would not be surprised if it just went bad.

Any idea`s? I have no tools to check anything here at work, just praying i can get home this afternoon. Sorry for the long post.

 

Battery connections??? Also how old are the batteries. 5 years is about all I've ever gotten out of a set.

 

Connections have been cleaned and tigtened, batteries are about 2 1/2 to 3 years old.

 

Most auto parts places can check the altenator for free w/the vehicle running.

 

Good sugestion, Autozone is just around the corner.

 

Might as well check for codes too.

 

If you swapped the Central Timing Module with the negative battery cables hooked up and power to the system, you may have fried the ECM and the built-in regulator (in the ECM) for the alternator.

If that has happened, nose around here for the swap to the external voltage regulator and solve the problem permanently, for next to nothing, and far more robustly than the OEM approach.