flickering lights.

[dsblack]

My battery gauge and lights flicker when driving down the road. No ryme or reason to it. I was suspecting a bad wire, or loose ground. But have not yet found one. It does not over charge, or anything like that.
Any ideas on where to look? We are leaving in a couple of weeks for an almost 3 week vacation. This was happening before the new lights and door locks.

thanks
Doug

 

[Dsl_Dog_Treat]

Could be a good possibility that the voltage regulator is on its' way out.
Does it do it also at an idle?

 

[oregon-mike]

Doug,
I don't recall if my battery gauge was flickering when my headlight switch took a dump on me. I was too worried about oncoming traffic freaking out when my lights were turning on and off : to look at that (plus, when they were out my dash lights were out as well).

I guess I didn't read the thread where you added new lights. Did you add new headlights? Maybe a headlight wire rubbing through somewhere and drawing a bit too much current (not a full time short, just enough to draw down the alt)? I guess without knowing the whole story I can't offer you much. If you haven't replaced the light switch & socket & done the relay mod that's the first place I'd look.

VRs going out seems to be a fairly common thing too, haven't dealt with that yet so can't offer any advice that direction.

Mike

 

[Guntherx]

Check the plug connection at the VR. It is notorius for overheating and going bad. I replaced mine, installed it with some electrical grease and still occasionally have to unplug it and replug it a few times to get the connection clean again. Its a FORD thing.
The other possibility is the rectifiers going bad in the ALT.It can only really be checked correctly at an ALT shop with the equipment unless you want to tear the ALT down and checck it yourself.

 

[dsblack]

changed the VR with one that drained the batteries... good one huh? So the original one is back in. I do loose the dash lights and the headlights dim, and the gauge drops. It will bounce a few times, and then all is ok. Sometimes this happens when I hit a bump, other bumps do not seem to change it...
I will get a new VR into it. The plug looked ok, but may have been dirty inside. will check that also.
The charge circuit is just the VR, ALT and Bat, right?

 

[82F100SWB]

On my truck, I've had this issue since I changed the alternator, new one has a bad diode, tried a couple regulators, to no avail. Time to upgrade to a 3G....

 

[Timthetoolman]

My truck did the same flickering thing a couple of weeks ago while pulling my fiver, while going down hill at 70mph let off the peddle and the voltage guage would jump back and forth, give it go juice and it would stop.

This thing would not do it on every down hill, then once I got back on the slow roads doing 55 it has not done it since.