You guys.....oakwood has a legitimate question. And a very good one. "Most" of the replies were good advice. Batteries don't give a damn if the charger is for a car,boat,or airplane. The only thing the battery understands is voltage and amperage. And "ALL" batteries live longer with a slow, low amperage charge. It doesn't matter much if it is a cheap or expensive battery. Forcing 10 amps into a battery designed for 1-2 amp charging systems is stupid....and dangerous....with a side benifit of reduced battery life. Yes....they do explode....I've seen it...and the results can be bad. Batteries...especially lead acid....are not some benign item we should take for granted....there are people out there without eyesight that will echo my sentiments. The advice he got at the top of this thread was good advice. Some of you owe him an apology. I would be ashamed at my ignorance if I answered anyone in that manner. (and jumpstarting at a battery with 250 amps is meaningless. His starter will dictate what amount of amperage is drawn. Also, I have never seen a car starter operate on 10 amps....so if your "10 amper" starts your car....something is not adding up....or it is putting out more than 10 amps)

I bought a "Vector", "Power On Board" smart charger with 25 amp, 10 amp, 2 amp charging circuits, and 75 amp starting circuit. It is fully automatic and will recharge a car battery in 2 hours. It's circuitry varies the current and charges the battery slow or fast according to it type and size etc. It has modes for gel cell batteries, sealed lead acid batteries, agm batteries (absorbed glass amt), as well as wet cell batteries. It has an alternator check circuit and a battery voltmeter display. It turns itself off to. I really like mine. They are available at many places but the link below shows one at Sam's Club for $49.95. A good buy in my opinion. Here is a link that might be useful: Charger at Sam's Club

Attatching the stripped wires directley to the battery posts by wrapping them around sounds a little sloppy, just my opinion. The connection won't be real good. I'm guessing that the lighter in the 1989 is an older one made before it was as common to use them for powering devices. I would try to find an adapter at a store like Radio shack that will let you use the charger without having to cut the wires. I would also look into whether or not feeding current back into the lighter socket is going to cause any problems, I don't know enough about it to say. Another option would be to cut off the adapter, and install some battery clamps/clips to the stripped wires. If you can find some clamps that attatch to the wires by wrapping the wire around a small screw built into the clamp, then tightening the screw, it will be easier to attatch the wires to the clamps. The other method would be to crimp the clamps onto the wires with a pair of pliers. Then attatch the clamps to the battery, positive , then negative. Remove negative then positive. I like to wear gloves when working with car batteries, in case there is any acid present, and because the terminals are made of lead. Anyone who knows more please add your $0.02...

Hi Jerry. Looks like the hook is set.. :) Trying to understand exactly why certain things happen is what keeps me studying and reading everything I can. It also keeps me asking questions when a further solution isn't really necessary at times as well. Thats why I'm an automotive tech, there is so much to feed the curiosity beast. Alternators in general use a delta or(triangle) or "Y" shaped stator. The stator is the wires that are visible just inside of the case of the alternator. The ends of the wires that make up the stator are connected to the diode bridge. The bridge typically consists of six diodes which allow the current to flow to the alternator output, and of course from the alternator case. If someone does not really understand how diodes work, they can do some web searching on the subject, or just accept the fact that they act like a one way valve. The diodes are connected to allow electrons to be pulled from the + (positive) side of the circuit, and then pushed onto the - (ground) side. Inside the alternator there is a component called the rotor. Basically it's a coil of wire that has a current flowing through it to create a magnetic field. The rotors ends are designed to pull the magnetic field around the sides of the coil, and into a series of + and - magnets as viewed from the side. The rotor is connected to the pulley and is turned by the belt. This "series of magnets" rotate inside the stator, and the result is electrons are pushed and pulled in the stator creating an AC voltage. This AC voltage is rectified by the diode bridge, and we see it as DC on a volt meter. But looking closer with an ocilliscope we can actually see something else. The DC voltage isn't steady. On a normally operating vehicle with little electrical load (low current flow) there will be small humps as each diode begins and stops conducting. Charging systems also have a capacitor across the output of the alternator. The capacitors job is to slightly charge up higher than the present system voltage, and then discharge when the voltage it stored is higher than the system voltage. This effect is used to smooth out the humps from the alternator. There are two things that happen when a stator or diode fail. The diode failing can either short, or open circuit. If it shorts, generally the result is an alternator that drains the battery and is pretty easy to diagnose. (I'm not going to be real specific here, there isn't enough time but there are other possibilities as well) When a diode fails open though what you get is a space where instead of overlapping diodes conducting, there is a conductive hump, a period where the capacitor has to discharge longer, and then another conducting hump. I have seen situations under load where the AC voltage on top of the DC output gets up between 2 and 3 volts. (A shorted diode could have an even more dramatic voltage change) Now take a sensor where the output is an analog signal, and allow the system voltage to vary like this and you can get a computer reacting to inputs that are not really occuring. One such example would be false cylinder ID pulses, or incorrect crankshaft speed calculations by the computer. To an inexperienced tech, they pull the car in, it's running erratic, missfiring, maybe an incorrect idle speed. The use a volt meter and see the system voltage around 14v where they expect it to be and they end up running around and testing, and maybe even replacing all kinds of parts trying to fix the problem. It's added a whole dimension to testing when it comes to todays cars. Things like diode suppression when solenoids are operated can be really important to prevent voltage spikes on the system voltage. Getting used to looking closely at voltage waveforms has been really important when it comes to sensors like a wheel speed sensor. Litterally the difference between a sensor that is working, and one that the computer thinks is not can be 1/100th of a volt. With an AC voltmeter, it's impossible to interpret this change in the signal, heck it's hard with a scope by eye. I end up relying on trapping the waveform and using cursers to provide the voltage measurement. (Ahh the luxury of a digital storage ocilliscope) With an alternator I do exactly the same thing. I trigger my scope off of an injector current, or secondary lead if available, and then set the scope to 100mv/div and position the voltage line on the display and look at it between 2ms and 5ms/div. (Sometimes faster, sometimes slower depending on the needs) Here is a link that might be useful: A tutorial on alternator ripple, not just my rough interpretation