Celica Forums News Portal r/Celica Celica/car noob with a starter/alternator problem [r/Celica]

Hi Celica fans! As the title suggests I've been having some weird problems starting my 1985 Celica GT over the course of the last 6 months. The best I can come up with is the alternator isn't completely charging my battery and therefore, while it looks like its not dead, the battery is not fully charged and capable of starting my car.

All dash/door lights and the headlights will work but the car just won't even attempt to start. This started happening more often as well. The battery is brand new, we fixed the right headlight not popping up because we thought that was draining the battery, and I tightened the alternator belt recently but the problem persists.

I'm thinking the belt or the alternator itself is just bad and needs to get replaced? Or could it be a separate starter problem?

Sorry for the janky noob post but its my first car I've cared about and I want to learn how to fix it myself before I start throwing money at a mechanic.

Thanks a ton guys!

Edit : something was wrong with the starter, couldn’t figure it out, but once we replaced it the problem went away! I’m going to tinker some more and try to figure out the exact problem.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I’m going to really deep clean my engine under the hood and make sure all the connections are clean and not broken.