electrical and ignition Battery, Electrical.

[Robotin]

so with my car cold, i was checking on some electronics. and it looks like my alt ground might be compromised. 

 

also i attached a multimeter to my battery (car has not been driven in a few weeks). with my multimeter set to 200ACV it was reading 26.2.

 

is that 26.2 volts?! if so. what is going on. could my alt ground be the culprit.

[roadhog0]

You set it to AC Volts! You need to set it to DC Volts. Cars run on Direct Current, not Alternating Current like your house. Recheck and report back.

[Robotin]

^^^^^will do. thank u!!

[Mike Self]

Your alternator is grounded (from the factory) with a heavy gauge brown wire that runs from one of the assembly nuts on the alternator's back side to a bolt (usually on the alternator mounting bracket) that screws into the engine block.  If there is no wire your alternator has a very chancy grounding path due to its rubber (or urethane if you've updated 'em) mounts.

 

And over the years, the wire will flex and gradually break underneath the terminal insulation, so that it looks OK from the outside, but barely makes good contact at the ring terminals.   So carefully inspect this ground wire:  tug on the wire where it's crimped to the terminal to insure it's in good shape.  If it isn't, replace with a length of 10 ga wire, preferably with brown insulation.  

 

cheers

mike