This morning when I was leaving the house I noticed the lights were blinking very quickly. Is this the infamous ground problem? It seemed to be better driving down the road at 3-4k rpm but it had to look a little weird to other drivers. I was almost expecting people to pull over thinking I was a cop. Could this be something other than bad grounds?

thanks,
Paul

 

Do you have an oscilloscope? Could be some bad winding in the alternator. If you have an O-scope, I'd test the positive terminal of the battery and see if there is some ripple.

 

I have never heard of this problem.

 

No I don’t have one.

I had a bad connection the other day and the stereo was cutting on and off while the car was running. Later when I was putting the top up it was moving real slow (I thought I might have the motor going out). When I tried to start the car it was dead. I cleaned up the terminals and it seemed to be fine but now the lights “flicker”. I hope I didn’t do damage to something when raising the top.

They don’t totally go out, they kind of flicker. It's weird as hell

 

It's the alternator regulator that has gone kaput by now. Both small wires have to be attached to the alt for it to work right.

Get you digital meter out and check the output of the alternator. See FSM.

 

F-ing Shop Manual?????

Where is a good place to get a manual?

 

http://www.teamfc3s.org/main/factory...CAL_SYSTEM.pdf

 

Factory Service Manuals are online on this site in the first couple of threads......the one called FAQ.

 

Screw the FSM. Causes more problems than it solves. Just pop some ecstacy and throw a rave.

 

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Thanks guys!

 

If it's a non turbo with volt gauge, I guess you could look at it and see if its needle is twitching along with the headlights.