Doug K
New Member
- Joined
- November 15, 2017
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Denver
- City, State
- Denver CO
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- Sport Trac 2004 RWD XLS
this is driving me a bit crazy..
Last year the battery went bad, (I think) causing the charge light to flicker at random times. Multimeter confirmed wildly fluctuating voltage when the light was flickering. Usually a bad battery will show up as dim lights, hard starts etc, but this one started fine right up until it failed completely while driving in a Nebraska thunderstorm. Replaced the battery in the thunderstorm, a real joy, and everything was fine until a month ago.
This time the charge light went on dimly, rather than flickering. Checking showed a steady 12v with the engine running, not a changing voltage. This looked like a bad alternator/voltage regulator to me, replaced the alternator under warranty.
Now the random flickering and changing voltages is happening again. There's no pattern I can find - revving the engine doesn't change, slowing or speeding up doesn't change, stopping and restarting doesn't change. It starts on its own randomly and stops the same way. Sometimes at startup, sometimes I can drive for an hour without seeing it.
Battery is not yet a year old, new alternator, serpentine belt replaced last year at the first go-round of weird flickerings.
The alternator is a remanufactured one so I have some doubts about it.
Checked all the ground cables, replaced the ones under the driver/passenger doors some years ago, cables from battery look sound, hood strap is good.
At this point suspect something in the wiring going slowly bad and driving me mad.. ideas welcomed.. thank you..
Last year the battery went bad, (I think) causing the charge light to flicker at random times. Multimeter confirmed wildly fluctuating voltage when the light was flickering. Usually a bad battery will show up as dim lights, hard starts etc, but this one started fine right up until it failed completely while driving in a Nebraska thunderstorm. Replaced the battery in the thunderstorm, a real joy, and everything was fine until a month ago.
This time the charge light went on dimly, rather than flickering. Checking showed a steady 12v with the engine running, not a changing voltage. This looked like a bad alternator/voltage regulator to me, replaced the alternator under warranty.
Now the random flickering and changing voltages is happening again. There's no pattern I can find - revving the engine doesn't change, slowing or speeding up doesn't change, stopping and restarting doesn't change. It starts on its own randomly and stops the same way. Sometimes at startup, sometimes I can drive for an hour without seeing it.
Battery is not yet a year old, new alternator, serpentine belt replaced last year at the first go-round of weird flickerings.
The alternator is a remanufactured one so I have some doubts about it.
Checked all the ground cables, replaced the ones under the driver/passenger doors some years ago, cables from battery look sound, hood strap is good.
At this point suspect something in the wiring going slowly bad and driving me mad.. ideas welcomed.. thank you..
