Battery light on after mudding
 

2006 t4r SR5 4x4 V6

Alright first let me start this thread by saying I've searched the internet for days and reads tons of threads with common symptoms and none of their fixes have worked for me thus far.

I went out goofing off the other night after a hard rain and ended up getting stuck in some mud / water. The water was a few inches from my door seals in the front, water up to my hitch in the rear (i'm lifted 3"). Ended up getting out with the help from a friend and started to head home. My battery light came on and eventually my lights started to dim and i lost all power and eventually it shut off on the side of the interstate. Called a tow truck and got it towed home.

Charged it up over night and began troubleshooting. The next morning it started up just fine as expected. Battery light is still on and not receiving a charge, and my locks aren't operating with the gear shifter moving into and out of the park position. The wiring diagram shows to fuses in between the alternator and the battery, a 7.5a and a larger 130a (or 120 i cant remember), the 7.5a fuse is good and the larger one looks fine. I've checked every other fuse under the hood and the fuses under my dash and they all check out. I even cleaned my battery terminals real good.

Today i took a pressure washer to my engine bay / undercarriage and sprayed out the starter as much as i could to maybe knock some of the gunk out and free up the brushes if they were stuck. Followed it up by blowing it out with an air hose and sprayed electrical parts cleaner on the inside as much as i could while its still attached to the engine. Still no dice.

At this point i'll be taking the alternator off the engine, huge pain in the ass i know, taking it apart to clean it much more thoroughly and then re-assembling to get it tested on a bench. Is there anything else that i should check or test that i haven't done so already? I really don't think its the alternator gone bad because it happened immediately after i got free of the mud.

Tl : Dr,

Went mudding and got stuck
Battery light came on and died
Door locks with gear shifter dont work
Fuses are good
Cleaned the alternator, battery and all connections
Pulling it off to clean better and get tested tomorrow
help

I was going to recommend checking connections / cleaning but looks like you already did that.

Have you load tested the battery? Perhaps it suffered some internal fault which is contributing to the issue. You could consider replacing it and see if that resolves the issue.

Do the alternator and resting charge voltages look ok?

The load tester at my work shop wasn't working so i didn't get a chance to do so.

Explain what you mean by a "resting charge voltage".

My battery voltage is 12.6ish after being charged. Truck running it doesn't jump up to 14v meaning its not charging. I've put a meter on the stud coming out of the alternator while it was running and got a reading of 12.5ish volts.

You just answered it.

The resting voltage of a fully charged battery. Usually settles somewhere in the 12.7 to 12.9v range.

Good notes on alternator voltage... looks like you have something there.

update: alternator started to make a pretty terrible noise like the bearing was going out, i removed it and took it to get tested at a parts store. It tested good but i went ahead and bought a replacement anyways. Put the new one on and voila it solved the issue.

Only thing i figure is that the bearing was failing just enough to cause friction and not let the alternator out out enough amperage to make the system run smoothly.

Anyways, i think I'm done mudding for a long time. Thanks for the help