Hilux808

I was wondering if anyone has experienced the problem I'm having with my 91' 4Runner. Just the other week during driving at night I noticed my Discharge light and Brake light in the dash sporadically flashing/flickering on and off for split second intervals (It will do this for a split second then it will stay off for awhile, maybe 5 minutes or up to an hour). At first I thought I was seeing things because it wasn't staying on, I just saw these red flashes coming from out of no where. It's not visible in the daytime because it flashes very fast, maybe once or twice in a second and it just happens randomly every once in awhile, almost indicative of a loose connection, also like turning a light switch on and off very fast. Since both lights come on at the same time this leads me to believe that this is directly related to the charging circuit.

Anyway I tried the search function as usual but couldn't find an exact answer (other then replacing the alternator). The closest I came was this,

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f114...g-swap-157291/

Does anyone know if there is a charge light relay in the 2nd gens as this thread is talking about for the 1st gens? I can't find any gray color relays on the passenger side, I only see two unlabeled black relays and I don't know what those do. As far as I can tell my factory manual doesn't list a charge relay for my truck, all I see is the IGN and ALT fuse (The manual even hints at changing the alternator if the charge light stays on due to a bad IC regulator, but since my problem is a flickering charge light I'm a little stumped...unless my alternator craps put completely tomorrow.)

I'm trying to do the simple tasks first to nail this problem (pulling the alternator on my truck is a real pain since i have to drain the coolant too).

This is what I can tell you about my truck so far, the in-dash volt meter is always showing a good charge, engine runs great - no problems in any RPM range. No starting problems, battery is always strong, no weak battery issues. The current alternator is a re-manufactured NAPA Raylock that is just over a year old (It would not surprise me if this is causing the problems).

My next question; if I do have to pull the alternator, whats a good high output and where to get it?

Thanks....

Hilux808

Update - Turns out it was my alternator that was going bad, the diodes and the rectifier. This is what caused the flickering of the battery and brake dash lights. This is a good article for charging system tests.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/charging_checks.htm

http://www.rowand.net/shop/tech/alte...atortheory.htm

http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/elec05.pdf