Weird Charging/Electrical Problems

[Woodenhead]

Hi All

The other day when driving home I noticed my alternator (Gen) light came on and my volts were down around 12 as opposed to 14. If I wound it up to 2000RPM I'd get 14 Volts and the light would go out. I figured either my alternator was on it's last leg or since we had a foot of snow fall maybe all the snow blowing in the front was doing goofy things to the alternator.

Then the next day with the truck running I put an ammeter (DC Clamp on) on the wire from the alternator and read 1.7 amps. The wire coming from pos side on the battery and read 10 amps. When I got back in the truck the volt meter suddenly dropped to 8.5 volts (verified with meter on battery). While it idled my radio would come off and on by itself as I put the parking brake off and on (daytime running lights go off and on with brake). When I shut the truck off the volts on the battery went up to 10.5.

Now the truck wouldn't start so I tried to boost it (with 3/4 ton Ferd) and it would try to turn over but didn't seem to have enough juice. So I went back to work baffled . I came out later in the day and it started under it'd own power (no boost required).

When I drove into the shop at work my ABS light would come off and on and my tach would drop to 0 then back up again.

I know a little about electrical but this ones got me stunned. I think maybe it's a bad ground somewhere but where? Maybe it's something else.

We've got lotsa snow in the past few days and there's plenty of ice and snow frozen to the undercarriage so it's been in the shop here at work since yesterday thawing out so I can work on it tomorrow.

HELP

Thanks,
Mike