Long story short, I went off-roading today and after I ran through a mud pit (wasn't very deep, maybe up to the wheel hubs) and I think I killed my alternator and messed up my charging system on my 97 Jeep ZJ
4.0L. My volt gauge normally sits at 14 and after running a mud pit it was sitting at about 11 and about a mile down the trail it finaly went below 9. I barely made it home (60 mile drive) on just the battery's charge. I went to the local parts store and picked up an alternator andswapped it out thinking that would solve the problem. Since my battery was dead after the drive I borrowed the battery from my girlfriends truck to start my truck up. Well it started up fine but the volt meter was only sitting at 11 on a brand new battery, and as soon as I disconnected the battery my truck would die. Finally I got my girl to sit in the truck and give it some throttle to keep it from dieing while
I swapped the batteries, which worked but as soon as I installed mine the volt meter dipped below 9 again and about 15 seconds later the truck died. I cleaned out the engine bay REALLY good in order to install the alternator and cleaned all the wiring on the alternator, battery, the grounds and even the electrical connection to the starter.
Am I missing anything here? Is there anything else that could have gotten messed up in the mud that would prevent the alternator from charging? Any other ideas?
Thank you, Fred R.