Head lights and dash light problem!!
02-22-2014, 11:01 AM
#1
Junior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 6
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Head lights and dash light problem!!
My head lights and dash lights dim and brighten while driving. Seems to be more spastic when accelerating. What do you guys think. Would hate to have to trace a bad ground.
02-22-2014, 08:56 PM
#5
Senior Member
Yah. Alternator. All your power comes from there. Could still be just a bad ground somewhere, though. How many miles do you have on it? Do you drive in harsh environments? Very cold, very hot? All those could help point to failing alternator.
02-25-2014, 10:30 PM
#7
Senior Member
The circuit with the symptom, lighting, is the place to start.
It's easy to diagnose an alternator though. So you're in Florida, where you have both heat and humidity, and both of those shorten the life of the alternator. Are you the original owner? Back in the old days, when we used dinosaurs to power our trucks, we would be lucky to get 60-80k out of an alt (in heat and wet) before one of the diodes failed and caused symptoms like you describe. Rebuilding sometimes replaced the winding and always replaced all the diodes, making it as good as new.
It's easy to diagnose an alternator though. So you're in Florida, where you have both heat and humidity, and both of those shorten the life of the alternator. Are you the original owner? Back in the old days, when we used dinosaurs to power our trucks, we would be lucky to get 60-80k out of an alt (in heat and wet) before one of the diodes failed and caused symptoms like you describe. Rebuilding sometimes replaced the winding and always replaced all the diodes, making it as good as new.