As I said, the ZJ left us stranded on Saturday night. Last winter, on the coldest of days I had observed a charging problem. It seemed the alternator couldn’t keep up with the heater, and defrost, and tunes and the like. It never left us anywhere, but when it gone down to -30 or so I was definitely weary.
In the summer… it wasn’t really something that I was keeping an eye on. I guess I knew that I had to do something about it before winter hit again, but it turns out I wouldn’t get that far. And so… since ultimately I like our ZJ, I fixed it right.
With a 150amp alternator from Amperage Tech Industries in Calgary, and an Odyssey deep-cycle battery. Not the cheapest solution, and one that is certainly overkill for now… but if I ever get a winch on it like I want, it’ll be ready. If 150 amp means nothing to you, like it used to to me… the stock alternator is rated to only 90amp. That’s a big up.
And this Jeep wrenching has really made me realize how much I’ve neglected our daily grinder. There is still lots of stuff I can do to this thing for DIRT cheap, and hopefully will in the future.