Got a 98 Rodeo 6 cyl with 44K miles. Battery and Brake light came on a few days ago. I parked it, went back the following day and checked with volt meter, 12.4 volts not running and 11.6 running. Looks like alternator to me. First price check for replacement at parts house is $198. What I did not like was the light on the dash that said BRAKE came on also. So I did a web search and thus far have found several references to shorted (to what I don't know) wireing harness and bad alternator giving the same symptom, battery and brake light on.
Not wanting to do the job twice due to lack of infomration. Has anyone else ran into this problem. In the olden days i would just replace the diode bank, if one diode or more were bad and the bearings and put the alternator back in of course replacing the belt. Now I'm concerned that i might have a wireing harness problem also and that it could eat the new alternator.
Thanks in advance for any help. noobie