Well, just got back from Champion Chevrolet. The vette tech there (Shane) was all embarrassed to tell me that he had neglected to tighten down a ground screw for the alternator and that was most certainly causing my problems. I was just glad it wasn't something serious, so he had no need to be so apologetic about it. Sure beats paying for a new alternator!
But on the way home, I was eyeballing the voltmeter and saw that it was creeping down below 12 volts again. I pulled into the driveway and just sat there with the A/C running and put on the headlights to see what would happen. The voltage dropped down to 11.2 volts. I just revved up the engine a little bit, and could actually hear the alternator click in, and the volts started climbing back up to the normal 13.5 volts.
So has anyone actually paid attention to this meter? Does the voltage fluctuate like this normally? Honestly I NEVER paid attention to this meter before, so I don't have any idea if this is something that has ALWAYS been happening, and I just never noticed it. I guess it's kind of like your temperature gauge. It will go up and down while driving in traffic on a hot day, but heck, I don't really watch that one either.
