Help me please

[franco]

I bought a 99 firebird about 3 months ago. Everythings been ok until recently when my alternator went out. Well i knew it wasnt the battery because i just replaced that a month ago but had it tested anyway. I ordered a new alternator that was supposed to push out 180 amps instead of the 105 amps. Not even 2 seconds after i install the new alternator the car is still not reading out the 14 volts its supposed to so i took the battery and the alternator back up to autozone and they said both were bad. So i got a new battery and still the car is eating through alternators and cant seem to find the problem. This will be my third alternator in 2 weeks. Can anybody help???

[97LT1Z28]

I'm not sure whether you have a V6 or the V8 Engine. Either way you could have a short in the system that causes a constant drain on your charging system. To test for a short, disconnect your negative battery cable and connect a light between the negative battery post and the disconnected cable. If it lights up, there's a short. The majority of shorts happen because of a bad starter or with aftermarket alarm systems (if they've gone bad), or even aftermarket stereo wiring if it becomes exposed. If you find a short, the first thing I'd have tested is the starter.

Before disconnecting your battery cable, make sure any security features such as "Theftlock" are turned off. Your owners manual will have the instructions to do that.

As they say in China . . . . . .Good Ruck.

[franco]

thanks

thanks for the reply and im going to get started on that tommorow morning.....it will give me something to occupy my time over the weekend. Also has anybody found the headlight conversion kit to change the headlights from sealed beam to the other kind? I have all the other lights blue except for the headlights and it looks really ghetto. By the way its the V6.