Intermittent discharge

mgbeda

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My 87 fifth has an intermittent discharge on the ammeter. It can be slight or sometimes bad enough to set off the red discharge light. But of course it doesn’t happen when I’m able to measure anything. I have cleaned all the connections including the voltage regulator screws, didn’t help. Does this sound more like a regulator or alternator or...?

Thanks!

Mike
 

droptop

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I will have to admit that I was a little reluctant to open this thread with a title like that. LOL.
 

Ele115

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My Fury was doing that at night with lights and A/C on and I had two things going on. My battery was passing, but it was 3.5 yrs old. I never keep one past 3 years. The other thing was the numerous grounds and that great big police installed junction box thing had some corrosion on it. I put in a new battery and spent about two hours and every cable and terminal I could find and it's perfect, the A/C comes out the vents with a lot more force now too. Never take grounds for granted, especially in an old car. That big fusible link by the battery can be notorious for some green stuff too.
 

Mikes5thAve

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Try running a wire from the alternator casing to the engine or straight to the negative battery post and see if that changes anything. I had one car I had to do that to. 88/89s actually had that separate ground wire as part of the different alternator/bracket setup they had.

Every time I've had a bad voltage regulator the headlights would dim when you stopped and got bright again as you sped up. I'm sure there are different things they do but that's always been the give away I've had.
 
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