Lights Flickered. Replaced Alternator. Now more flicker?
04-22-2013, 12:27 PM
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Lights Flickered. Replaced Alternator. Now more flicker? Hello there! I'm new to the forum, but not new to getting my hands dirty or figuring out my own problems. This one is starting to get me a bit frustrated, so before I start replacing everything under the sun I thought I would see if you guys had any experience with this.
After several months of on and off again flickering lights (headlights, dash, etc.) I took my 1999 Z28 SS to Oreilly's and they tested my Battery and Alternator. They said that my Alternator was bad, but my Battery was just fine. This past weekend I finally replaced my Alternator and now the problem seems to be even more persistent. The voltage moves from a little past 13Volts to 14+ Volts (depending on whether or not I'm hitting my gas pedal). If I am at idle, the Voltage appears to be consistent, however once I hit the gas the Voltage starts to move quite a bit between 13.5V to maybe 14+V. Before driving the Camaro today, I did charge up the Battery last night just to be sure.
I did check my ground connections, they don’t look terrible... a little smaller ground cable than what I'd like to see, but nothing short of what should be there. The Camaro is an AZ car, so there is not any rust at any of the connections.
Something I found to be suspicious: The only thing that I did notice is the plug that plugs into the Alternator that has one single Red Wire coming from it became dis-attached while removing the old Alternator. I soldered the Red Wire back and placed the plug back into the back of the Alternators socket. What is the purpose of the Red Wire? I'm hoping that wire didn't come un-soldered while I was trying to re-install it, could this be causing the flicker?
After several months of on and off again flickering lights (headlights, dash, etc.) I took my 1999 Z28 SS to Oreilly's and they tested my Battery and Alternator. They said that my Alternator was bad, but my Battery was just fine. This past weekend I finally replaced my Alternator and now the problem seems to be even more persistent. The voltage moves from a little past 13Volts to 14+ Volts (depending on whether or not I'm hitting my gas pedal). If I am at idle, the Voltage appears to be consistent, however once I hit the gas the Voltage starts to move quite a bit between 13.5V to maybe 14+V. Before driving the Camaro today, I did charge up the Battery last night just to be sure.
I did check my ground connections, they don’t look terrible... a little smaller ground cable than what I'd like to see, but nothing short of what should be there. The Camaro is an AZ car, so there is not any rust at any of the connections.
Something I found to be suspicious: The only thing that I did notice is the plug that plugs into the Alternator that has one single Red Wire coming from it became dis-attached while removing the old Alternator. I soldered the Red Wire back and placed the plug back into the back of the Alternators socket. What is the purpose of the Red Wire? I'm hoping that wire didn't come un-soldered while I was trying to re-install it, could this be causing the flicker?
05-18-2013, 04:20 PM
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same thing happened to the pig tail wire while i was replacing my alternator. be careful bc it may have broken loose again and thats what is causing it or you didnt fix it right what I did was I bought a new pigtail and wired it in the exact location from the stock pig tail and everything is fine yea it looks like **** bc honestly i did a shitty job but it works.
