Flickering lights and voltage...again

[BeefJerky]

Well, I looked through all the many threads relating to flickering lights/jumpy voltage gauge and don't think any of them really quite help with my problem. I'll try to make the back story short. First, the battery cables were replaced only a few years ago, so I don't think they're the problem. After trying three alternater/regulator replacements without fixing the problem, I suspect it's not that either. Though, with each replacement, it'd 'fix' the problem for a day or two. Now after putting in the third alternater and going through the ritual of it working for about a day, we wiggled the regulator plug, it did seem loose, and 'fixed' the problem for a few days. At any rate, I soldered on a new regulator plug, and it certainly fits tighter, but the flickering lights remain. I suspect it might be either the wire itself, or wherever it connects to at the other end. I'd like to hear views on this, and if someone could tell me WHERE the regulator plug runs to from the alternator, I could certainly run new wire. Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

 

[BeefJerky]

Well, to let everyone know, to maybe help someone else with the problem, it is solved. With the help of a couple of mediocre wiring diagrams, I was able to figure out what went where and what did what. Anyway, there are 3 wires coming off the regulator plug. One (white/black) just loops back to the single plug right next to it, so I eliminated the longer loop through the harness, and put a new plug on directly to the wire from the new regulator plug (didn't make much of a difference). The green/red plug is just hooking to a charging indicator, nothing more than that function. The last wire (yellow/white) is the key wire though. It runs to the power distribution box to a 15a fuse in there for the alternator field circuit. Apparantly over the years, the wire developed too much resistance. I opened the power dist box and while I couldn't totally replace the wire from the fuse holder, I cut it as short as I possibly could, and used a butt connector to connect it to a new high quality 16ga wire then sealed that with shrink wrap. Ran it to the regulator plug and spliced it the same way. Well, the flickering is now TOTALLY gone. The lights are as steady as can be, and of course no more voltage meter jumps. Also, the alternator doesn't overload anymore (with defroster on full and foot on brake in gear it used to cause dimmed lights). So the resistance also was cutting down the current available to the field as well. Hope this can help someone with the same problem, as it's a fairly easy fix and did the job.