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battery light acting up

J

jrichardson

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
562
Location
Hillsboro, MO
For a while now the battery light on my 98 lx has been going on and off and flickering. It does this under acceleration, deceleration, and when i'm idling or hold a constant speed. The lights on my car don't dim when the light comes on and the battery holds a constant 12v-ish and as far as me and my uncle(mechanic) can tell there is nothing wrong with the altenator. Anybody got any ideas?
 
if you are only seeing 12 volts across the battery with the engine running at idle then the alternator is not charging. you should be seeing ~14 volts across the battery when its running.
 
decided to test the battery again before I do the pain in the ass task of pulling the alt. and the battery shows 14.4v while running.
 
what is the battery light doing when you see 14.4 volts across the battery? have you load tested the battery?
 
alright with the brights on, fogs on, dome on, radio blaring and with battery light illuminated...it's still reading 14.4 across the battery.
 
ok, so it sounds like the alternator and battery are working fine. you will need to get a ford shop manual and run the pin point tests to determine why the battery light is coming on.
 
ok. so i killed the battery for the last time the other day and i put a newish battery in it. the battery i put in it is only 8 months old and worked fine in the tour i pulled it from. when i changed the battery the light stayed off until tonight and it stayed on for about five minutes and then shut off again. i'm gonna be testing the battery in the morning to see if it's showing correct voltage.
 
So I figured I would update this thread. My alternator died on me last week, when I put one from my parts car the light stayed off. I'm guessing it was the alternator all along. Its strange because we tested it at school multiple times with the load tester and it showed to handle 130amps just fine. We tested with the light on and when the light was off, no change.
 
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