Yesterday on the way to work, my radio started flickering on/off/on/off. Ok, radio or alternator, so radio & accessories to OFF. I kept driving, it was acting normal. Then once accelerating from a light at high RPMs the tachometer started going NUTS. It settled down again & a little farther on, the turn signal flashing would make the tach. dip w/ each flash of the lights. I was leaning toward the alternator being bad because this is alternator #3 on this car. Thanks to Jesus! it got me the 15-ish miles the rest of the way to work.

Took the alternator out, took the battery out, took them to get tested. The alternator was making volts under load and the monkey @ the counter called it good. The battery was at 10.4V and unsurprisingly read low capacity. I slapped it on the charger for a few hours and it went up to 14.6 ish on the charger, so I put it back in the car & had someone follow me back to the Advance Auto. They tested the battery again & it had gone from 100-something to mid-600s out of its rated 720 CCA reserve. Go figure. It was bright out so I didn't have the lights on and didn't notice if they were flickering.

The terminals had a tiny bit of corrosion, but apparently it was enough to block proper charging. Cleaned them before reinstalling the battery and bought a terminal brush. Last night I dressed the terminals and smeared them w/ vaseline before tightening them down.

This morning, the lights on the gauge cluster were dim until high RPM operation then they brightened up and dimmed out again. After that, they were flashing bright/dim/bright/dim during normal driving. Plenty of juice to run, even w/ the radio & A/C, but I still took Robocar instead of Stocker to work this morning instead of chancing it.

I'm thinking voltage regulator maybe? Is it something I can pull off my parts car alternator myself & swap in, or what?

Do you guys think it might be something else?

 

Sounds like the symptoms I had with my alternator... Did you get that tested?

 

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way to not read!

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Bah, I thought I saw it there somewhere... Any idea what voltage it was putting out? And why did they have to take the thing out to test it??
If it's already off, see about putting a new one in there, just to be sure to eliminate that problem.

 

I was going in to have the battery checked anyhow, may as well take the alt. with me since the car was going nowhere. It puts out normal voltage (13-15). I'm considering putting my spare in, but it's got bearings on the way out. At least it would tell me for sure if that's it. I'll have to double-check the grounds & battery contacts too, tonight.

 

As a reference, my alternator varries about .4-.5V from 5000RPM to idle with headlights, A/C, and stero cranked with bass booming.

 

really really sounds like the alternator. Did they have one of the nice units that puts a load on the alt or just reads it. What kind of voltage are you getting when the car is idling? It can put out the right voltage and still not be at full capacity.

 

I agree is sounds like your alternator, but double check your alternator fuse as well.

 

The tester supposedly put the alternator under load, but I didn't get a good look at it.

I called my dad (who has a degree in Auto. Tech.) and he said when his wife's car was acting the same way, he used the spray battery terminal cleaner & spray batt. terminal protector, opened up all the crimped contacts, spread the wires & cleaned the strands before reassembly & put it all back together tight, checked grounds, and it fixed the problem.

I got the spray cans of cleaner & protectant, redid all the (+) contacts even though they looked good. When I got to the (-) terminal and pulled on the crimped lug, the lug came right off the wires. bigeyes.gif sadwavey.gif Hi there wire ends!

I grabbed another gold-plated lug from my audio installation kit/pile o' stuff and put that on the smaller of the 2 wires I had jammed into the ground terminal lug in the late '90s, and reused the same lug for the big ground wire. Crimped them all tight as [deleted].

Start the car and the instruments were dim. Rev the motor, lights brighten up, then dim & flicker. Great. mad.gif Then they went back to the brightness they should be, and stayed there, revving or not. Test drive say: no more flickering! laugh.gif I guess the voltage regulator needed to wake up and then it was good. We'll see what happens tomorrow! Christians feel free to pray it works!

 

lol, gotta love when it's something simple.