Alternator 94 metro replaced 3 times

Hey all... new to the forum and glad to find it> I'm restoring my '94 with 149000... getting rusty but I think I can do it. My problem is strange... I had the problem others describe with eating alternator belts and howling alternators... everything checks out and I've replaced the alternator with new aftermarket ones and a used one... bearings are good, waterpump is good, pulleys look well aligned.... Here is the weird part... when the alternator is not hooked up to the electrical system it is fine... no noise... as soon as I re-attach the main wire from the alternator it sounds like it goes under load and the squealing begins...remove the wire it is gone... It does not appear to allow a charge to start even though power is coming out of the alternator... I used to have a problem with lights periodically dimming as if there was a short somewhere but I can't seem to find one... any ideas or help is greatly appreciated... also does anyone know where to find doors for a 4door geo metro hatchback? mine are rusting beyond help.
Thanks

I had this identical problem with my '94 4-door auto tranny metro. I got so fustrated with this problem I nearly drove it off a cliff! :angryfire

This is what I did to fix it...ensure that the belt is perfectly alligned with the three pulleys. Then I put a crow bar on the alternator and pried the belt "fiddle-string tight". At that point I didn't care :mad:.

It operated perfectly for over a year and a half with no squealing, and when the belt broke a few months ago I replaced it using the same crowbar and it has continue to operated flawlessly. I am not suggesting you perform dangerous fixes to your car, just telling you what this angry red-neck did. :lol2:

GEO"s seem to eat altenators I tell ya.
My 92 LSI went thru 3 in a year and a half BUT I found something that works!!!!
Don't buy the cheap ones . I bought a Bosche altenator and have had no problems. Of course they are high ticket items but they come with a lifetime gaurantee so that offsets the price. I got mine at Pepboy (only because they were the only parts store to have one in stock at the time)
Also when working on hi=mileage GEO's , mine has 160,000 mi, its seems best to find a good mechanic who know his way under the hood of one and just deal with him, he'll know its history then, Plus a chilton is a big help.
Seems like at times mine goes thru a dominoe effect of breakdown. One damned thing after another.

I've noticed the alternators have a tendancy to melt the wire going into the under-hood fuse box. That wire goes into the bottom of the fuse box, through the fuse, and another wire hooks the alternator up to the positive battery post. My recemmondation: Cut that wire, put a 60a in-line fuse between the alternator and battery, and just hook the alternator directly up to the battery. It's just bypassing the fuse in the fusebox, nothing more. As long as the battery is still hooked to the fusebox on the other side, everything will be great. My headlights actually got brighter when I did that. I also used 8ga car amp wire from the alternator to the battery.

Hell I.m gonna try that myself, My damn headlites are so weak I have to shine my MagLite out the windshield to see where I'm going....heh heh

Go to www.turbinetech.ca, and write the guy an email. For about $60usd I think it is, he'll sell you a headlight relay upgrade kit. Instead of drawing power from the internal electronics of the car(causing the ever-known "no headlights cause it burnt my fusebox" situation). It uses the switch inside the car to trigger a relay. The relay draws power directly from the battery, and uses a lower gauge wire to power the headlights. I've heard nothing but good things about his kit. I'm thinking of getting one myself :)

I'm so glad to have found y'all! I thought I was just destined to not be able to see at night!!!! :uhoh: I'll check that out wiht my headlights, etc

Hello all... I just put my 94 back on the road again after digging it out of the snowbank... started with the first turn of the key. This alternator thing is driving me nuts, though... Here's what is happening... I disconnected the wire that goes through the relay to the battery and so on and replaced it with a direct wire from alternator through an inline fuse to the battery... when this is disconnected the alternator doesn't make a squeak... I know, you're not supposed to run it with the alternator disconnected but it was an experiment.... Anyway, here's what happens... while the engine is running I reconnected the wire and immediately the alternator started squealing... remove the wire, no squeal... it sounds like when the alternator is under load it begins to have trouble spinning... Next I gave up and re-connected the original wiring (no difference so it must not be the wiring).... it seems to squawk when first starting up and I have to keep pushing in the clutch and coasting to allow the idle to drop and the squawk to go away... after awhile it stops altogether.... I can drive for miles and miles without any noise, everything working great and then... SQUAWK... as I downshift and the engine goes from dropped idle (clutch in) to rev (clutch out) I get the squawk again... Does anyone have an idea what is going on? Is it just another faulty alternator? This has happened with new ones, used ones, reconditioned ones... I can't figure it out and it is driving me nuts...

I just realized I had asked some of the same questions before... sorry about that but still... if anyone has any more ideas, I'd greatly appreciate them.