electrical issue

[tempforce]

i noticed while driving at night. that sometimes my lights will flicker/flare. 3-5 times per second. in a rhythm. like the honda motorcycles headlites do….

speeding up or slowing down the engine has no effect. it's worse on high beam. . volt gauge has been reading low, but reads normal with head-lites on. . with no changes in battery voltage if the battery is placed on a over-nite charge.

i checked and cleaned the battery connections.

any suggestions on what could be causing the light flaring/flickering.

as it's hard on the eyes and i'm sure not good on charging system. .

thanks…cc

 

[Prairie Dog]

Had the same problem with my truck and chased it for over a year. Turned out to be one of the old batteries.

 

[tempforce]

thanks for the help….

i'll check the battery connections again and do a volt and load test on each battery, while the connectors are off. .
they are only a couple years old so they are covered on warranty if i have a bad battery or two. .

 

[B.G. Smith]

While you have the batteries disconnected from each other, check the voltage on each. Bet it's gonna be different. Had same thng with our family car recently. Battery was still starting car fine and showed no abnormalities but was seven years old, replaced and problem gone. bg

 

[Prairie Dog]

In my case I didn't disconnect and check voltage but I did have them load tested and they were supposedly fine. .
My connections were clean and dry.

 

[tempforce]

received a red check gauges light this week. stopped the engine and cycled the key before re-starting. the red light was gone. i also noticed that the injector noise is the same pattern/frequency as the high beams.
i've cleaned the batteries, including the contacts/terminals, which didn't make any difference. they do look nice and clean.
now the radio is acting up. not wanting a blown computer. she went to the dealer for a check up. .
they found that the charging system is over 17 volts and the computer is only receiving 13 volts. sounds like the computer is trying to change the voltage it's receiving, then lowers the voltage due to another component receiving too high of voltage. .
now the fun begins, finding where the voltage drop is occurring. .
possible wiring harness. . they are supposed to do a load test on the batteries as well. . before replacing anything...

 

[Prairie Dog]

First thing I would check is the grounds at the qtr panel on the drivers side - run the bolts out and in or use a tiny wire brush on the threads. Poor connection at ground will cause a low voltage condition and corrosion causes all kinds of odd electrical strange effects.

 

[rscurtis]

Verify the connections at the jumper cable between the two batteries.

 

[Bob4x4]

In my case I didn't disconnect and check voltage but I did have them load tested and they were supposedly fine. .
My connections were clean and dry.

Voltage is part of a load test procedure

 

[tempforce]

they figured out that one of the soldered connections inside the wiring harness has high resistance. they did load test and check cells on the batteries. cleaned the cable ends and checked for a bad ground. 2 maybe 3 weeks to have chrysler have a new harness made. it's a non stocked item for any dealer or warehouse…
so now i'm back to chasing down a fuel starvation problem on my '83' ford ranger, powered by a mazda built perkins… i've already replaced the fuel pickup and fuel tank, bypassed the fuel separator. replaced fuel lines. now this evening after towing the truck home again with the atv. i bypassed the fuel filter and installed a lawn mower inline filter. will test drive it tomorrow. in case it needs towed home again…. my neighbors are going to tell me to just bolt the atv to the back bumper and run the atv's throttle remotely.
wish me well, as i don't want to bicycle the 6 miles to pick up groceries and mail… as the hill at the bottom will be push the bicycle only situation on the way home...

 

[tempforce]

truck is fixed, the replacement engine compartment wiring harness, took care of the problems. .