1996 - Electrical System "flicker" at idle | Ford Thunderbird club group 1955-2005 T-Bird models

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1996 - Electrical System "flicker" at idle

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kane
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Kane

Kane

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Thunderbird Year
1995
My 96 has a strange (to me) "flicker" in the charging system at idle. At approximately 600/650 rpm (idling in gear) my electrical system has this "flicker" in it. I can see it in the Volt Gauge and in any lights that are on. Increase the rpm to over 700 and it goes away (unless the flicker speed increases with rpm increase and then I can't see it) Doesn't matter the electrical load on it at the time. Everything in-everything off. Doesn't matter.
I'm on my 3rd Alternator trying to fix it (talk about the true definition of insanity!) The original (that was on the car when I bought it), a remanufactured replacement and then a new one. I tried to attach a video but it said "file to large".
Try this link to see if you can watch it.
https://www.**********/photos/#/icloudlinks/092cN4NHtrMnYYWacSvfXOZbQ/

Where the ****** is, type in ********** I don't know why it does that
Weird; 3rd edit for this. Where the ****** type in i c l o u d . c o m but no spaces like I had to do to get it to show

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My $180. dollar Bosch alternator just went out after trying to fail for the past year, one of the last crazy things it did at the end of it's life was to flicker my cluster, three times at highway speed in the matter of 15 miles or so, this Bosch was 4 1/2 years old, that's about 20k miles for me, this Bosch was in fact my 3rd alternator...........It kinda sounds like ya got an alternator issue, keep in mind these new p.c.m. controlled alternators puts out some 60-80 amps at idle and in today's cars plays a very big part in the electrical system more so than most people would ever think......Long story short, provided your p.c.m., battery, wire harness are working proper, I'd be leaning toward Alternator, also, I have heard of stories of bad alt.'s out of the box.....That's all I can think of, If I think of more, I'll post.
 
I agree with the above, my suggestion is not to go back to the parts store but find a local shop that rebuilds starters and alternators. Deal with a small local guy who is probably using better quality parts.
 
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