Gremlins!!

[furyus 67]

Good morning gentlemen! Well I've had the my 67 fury on a couple of trips and all seemed well....except.....my voltage gauge . I've had 3 alternators and 2 voltage regulators and all have done the same thing. I've converterted the charging system to 69 and up. Anything above idle and my voltage bounces from 12-15v . All of my lights pulse when it's happening. I've believe I have it wired correctly as I've triple checked it. I'm using the remote power wire from the ballast resistor to power the voltage regulator and have the alternator ran directly to the battery and still have the pulsing. Any clue as to what could be causing this?? Dave suggested the diodes in the alternator in a previous post but what are the chances of getting 3 alternators in a row with bad diodes? I'm ready to take er out back lol. Here's a short video. Don't mind the belt squealing.....

 

[furyus 67]

I'm convinced theirs something else afoot here. I ran a ground wire from the voyage regulator to the battery with no change. For giggle I turned the lights on. Voltage dropped from 15 to 12. Just a little more confused lol. Bad ground in the inside or....

 

[furyus 67]

Battery???? I know it's a little on the week side. If it sits for more than a week I've got to put it on a charger. As long I start the fury every couple of days it's fine....

 

[saylor]

hrum be careful this sounds horrible. pulsating is coming from something turning/running not from the battery itself, if u get what I mean

 

[furyus 67]

hrum be careful this sounds horrible. pulsating is coming from something turning/running not from the battery itself, if u get what I mean

I've been digging around the net and a couple people with the same issue where told weak battery as a possible culprit ..... It's got my panties in a bunch, no doubt!

 

[saylor]

I hope im wrong. I just cant envision how a batty can pulse, but I hope im wrong

 

[The Horvaths]

This is a problem when my alter*ator went bad.

 

[furyus 67]

This is a problem when my alter*ator went bad.

This is the 3rd alternator in 3 months. It started pulsing as soon as I started it. I'm thinking of running a wire off of the battery to a switch and use that to energize the alt/regulator. Not sure what else to try.

 

[furyus 67]

Update: Still not exactly sure what's causing it but I did figure out that it is in the dash. I ran a wire from the bat to a toggle, from the toggle to the alt/reg and the pulsing is gone. It will jump up to 14v while revving and then drop to 12v at idle. Not very enthused about tearing into the dash again!

 

[Wildaugust]

That sucks having to go through that many alternators and regulators. Looking at the gauge in your video, I think it's probably not the diodes. That appears to be a slow, intermittent pulse. Any alternators that I've seen with bad diodes have produced a rapid, continuous pulse. You said you connected your regulator to the "remote wire" at the ballast resistor. I'm not questioning your skills, but are you absolutely sure that the VR is connected to the 12 volt terminal of the ballast and not the coil side? The VR needs the full voltage. Do you have the single or dual ballast resistor?

I notice that you've grounded the VR and the alternator is grounded by it's mount. Are your battery terminals good and clean, making good contact? If all of that checks out then maybe something else in the car's wiring is causing it. I hope you find the problem soon.

 

[furyus 67]

That sucks having to go through that many alternators and regulators. Looking at the gauge in your video, I think it's probably not the diodes. That appears to be a slow, intermittent pulse. Any alternators that I've seen with bad diodes have produced a rapid, continuous pulse. You said you connected your regulator to the "remote wire" at the ballast resistor. I'm not questioning your skills, but are you absolutely sure that the VR is connected to the 12 volt terminal of the ballast and not the coil side? The VR needs the full voltage. Do you have the single or dual ballast resistor?

View attachment 79029


I notice that you've grounded the VR and the alternator is grounded by it's mount. Are your battery terminals good and clean, making good contact? If all of that checks out then maybe something else in the car's wiring is causing it. I hope you find the problem soon.

That is correct. It was connected to the ignition side of the ballast wire. I was only using it as a switch because I'm not using the ballast at all(msd).

 

[superfragl]

How old is the battery? Could it have intermittent short? A good battery should be able to start the motor even after sitting a month or longer.

 

[MYSINBIN]

If your battery fades after sitting, you either have a marginal battery, or a draw/short somewhere.

The draw/short could have compromised the battery.

Hope the input helps.

John

 

[furyus 67]

I swapped out a buddies battery and the pulsing continued. I'm gonna have to take some time and go thru what the p/o hacked in there. No choice at this point!

 

[furyus 67]

I'll tell ya tho.......I'm ready to reach inside the dash and just start ripping every wire out!! Too bad nobody makes dash harness for these things!

 

[superfragl]

Just start pulling the fuses out - that might help you locate the problematic part of the wiring.

 

[furyus 67]

Just start pulling the fuses out - that might help you locate the problematic part of the wiring.

The p/o has a plethora of wires crappily spliced into the box! When I tackle that I'll be rebuilding the harness all together.

 

[furyus 67]

Just a thanks for your input guys!! I'm going to have to cobble something up to get me thru the season. And by cobble I mean correctly wire essentials bypassing most factory wiring. It's a mess in there and I don't trust anything the p/o did.

 

[66Newyorker]

Put a relay from the battery to the alt. regulator.
Use the ign. wire that goes to the regulator to energize the relay. Put an line fuse going to the relay.
This will help reduce the the voltage drop the regulator is now seeing. This helped my pulsating. Also I went from using a dual field regulator to a single field regulator and grounded one field of my dual field alt. Hope this helps.

 

[Gerald Morris]

The p/o has a plethora of wires crappily spliced into the box! When I tackle that I'll be rebuilding the harness all together.

Then get to rebuilding bro. You really have little choice. Look up a service manual, go to the Electrical section, and see if ANY of the stuff from the fuse box is essential to the car starting and running. I've a '66 Newport, and have a reasonably clean wiring situation for a 50 yr old car. You should be able to bypass the cluster-f@#k attached to your fusebox. This should simplify matters.