Hi everyone.

I own a 2000 protege that had been running fine, whith the execption of my battery light coming on. I changed battery as it was quite old, but the light remained on. I installed a replacement alternator this weekend (which was checked to be good) prior to installing.

At first, the battery light went out...but it does come back on every now and then.

The worst issue is ever since I changed the alternator, the car won't shift into 3rd gear. I figure I must have bumped something while pulling out the old / replacing, as it was a really tight fit coming out from underneath. I just don't know where to go from here. The CEL is not on. To add insult to injury, I also saw the airbag light flash on this morning for a short time (it went back off).

What kind of gremlin did I set loose in this puppy?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

 

Make sure the alternator belt is tightened properly. If it slips or is loose, you'll get the charging light. Check your battery terminals very closely, clean them up and make sure they're good and tight. I've run across that MANY times.
Auto transmission issues are tough without a CEL to point you in the right direction. Will all the gears work if you manually select them?

 

also check your harness going into your alternator i had a battery light on my focus come on and thsoe wires were melting from the heat

 

Thanks for the replys. The belts and connections are tight. The intermittent battery light might be the harness

My main issue is how this alternator change has suddenly caused the transmission trouble. It was running great prior to the switchout (other than obviously the battery light). Anybody have any idea of what type of transmission sensor / wiring around the alternator area might cause me to loose OD?

 

Thought I would update this now problem is solved for others who might have experienced like issues.

It seems all of the above issues stemmed from the luck of 2 bad alternators. The first caused the battery light. It seems the second alternator was pushing way too many amps, which caused the tranny issue among other things (Burnt out the headlights)

A new (remanufactured) alt exorcised all the demons out