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voltage drop issue with brake lights

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Old Mar 7, 2014 | 03:15 PM
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Default voltage drop issue with brake lights

Hey guys I have searched this on the site for a bit and I cant seem to find my answer. I have a 2000 trans am that seems to have a little electrical issue. I noticed when my car starts up the voltage goes to around 14-14.5 (guessing) and with a little bit of driving it will go to a needle width above 13 or directly on 13. A friend told me it looked like my brake lights where "surging" while driving behind me one night and today I notice at idle just taping the brakes to get the lights on I could see my voltage gauge visually decrease. when I got home I looked at the sockets for the lights and neither of them looked burnt out. I figured even a burnt socket wouldn't cause that kinda voltage issue I was just looking to see if it was a weird occurrence. any ideas? neither of my fuses are burnt out either or at least the ones I checked, I already went through one alternator and not wanting to swap another one out. Thanks.
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Old Mar 8, 2014 | 03:32 AM
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Have you checked the battery, alternator, and battery terminals?
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Old Mar 8, 2014 | 06:29 AM
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Bad grounds can cause this flickering..
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Old Mar 8, 2014 | 09:59 AM
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There is alot of good info in here...
https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...-failures.html
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Old Mar 8, 2014 | 10:52 PM
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Check your grounds,
Check the condition of wires to battery
check the condition of exciter wire to the alternator
Consider your alternator's voltage regulator may be going out...
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Old Mar 10, 2014 | 10:12 PM
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Rear brake lights work properly. Cargo lamp works properly. Center high-mounted stop lamp (CHMSL) does not work. With bulbs out of socket, voltage on copper bus bars feeding lamp sockets reads 13v when brake pedal pressed. Inserting one bulb in socket causes voltage to drop to 0.006vdc as measured on my Fluke precision VOM.
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