I was sitting at a stop light with the blinker on and noticed the charge guage dipping down and back a little each time the blinker would blink. Is this normal? If so, I can't believe I just noticed it now. My Optima red is only about a year and a half old. Could this be a sign of a bad alt.? Thanks.

 

mine has started doing that too.
I wonder what it is?

 

It does the same thing on my 86, but I have a autometer volt meter.

 

Mine has done that for as long as I can remember. It did it with the 3.0L and it does it with the new 3.4L!

 

Mines been doing it since Nov. of '98 when I got the rig.
Must be normal, just like the temp gauge on most 3.0s never moves off of just under half way once it's warmed up.

 

The same with my 3.4L 03 Tacoma, you can see it fade on my Auto Meter gauges!!!!

fade...BRIGHT...fade...BRIGHT...fade...BRIGHT

 

Been doing it on my '91 for as long as I can remember.

 

Thanks guys. I feel much better now.

 

no, that aint normal. immediately sell that vehivle of yours and get a H2 instead...





if you look atthe blinker fuse, it's like a 30 amp one. so it's running from 10-15 amp NORMALLY.

now take the 60 amp alternator and you are at idle, so you are making what, like 20-30 amps. and you were probably at DRIVE so you had you foot on the brake pedal...

now do you have a big stereo system that was blasting?

and this was at nite so your headlights were one???

add them all up and you have a recipe for battery drain... if it were for a long time.

 

Mine does it too. I've thought about trying to hunt this problem down but after reading what you guys are saying, I'm not going to bother.

:bounce2:

 

I thought it had something to do with the ground at the main fuse box if you fix that it goes away.

 

My needle on my Autometer gauge moves only, but my gauge lights don't dim. I have three aftermarket gauges and none of they dim. I'm wondering why yours does this and mine don't?

 

It could possibly be that your turn signal relay is getting worn out and is drawing more current from the system than it used to. The relay contacts might have corrosion or crud built up on them, that would cause the amperage to be higher. If you can find a cheap replacement relay, try it and see if it helps, but if it doesn't really bother you I'd just leave it alone.

 

I used to have a serious electrical issue with my 1995 3.0 that I struggled with for awhile and eventually tracked down. My symptoms were much worse than just the turn signal voltage drop - *but* after my fix the turn signal voltage drop is hardly noticeable (barely and I mean barely moves the needle now)

Check out my mini-write up here.
Its cheap and easy to do. It costs less than 5 bucks and maybe takes an hour to do.

This fix has made my electrical system much more consistent and experience far less voltage drops under load (at least as observed from the dash gage)

In the course of troubleshooting and improving my electrical system I also followed the general guidance/advice for the "Big 3" grounding improvements as detailed here . This also made a noticeable improvement in the electrical system stability and combined with the fix above my voltmeter almost never moves a hair now.

 

Romad, that's some really good info you have there. When I turn my headlights on, my rpms drop a hair and it's kinda annoying. I think I'm going to follow your advice on that wire and the Big 3 things. Seems like pretty easy stuff to do and worth the trouble.

Thanks

 

Hey no problem at all - I have pulled so much good info from the forums that I like to contribute when I have something that may be of help.

On the big 3 mods: I used more 6ga wire to replace the ground wires from the NEG battery to the fender, NEG to the block, the EFI manifold to the firewall and the Alternator to the battery POS. The first two are easy the alt to the battery takes some effort since the cable run is longer and there isn't an ideal way to route the cable. The big 3 write up is good but targeted at the big stereo guys (which I am not one of) It looks like the write up uses some massive 0 gage cable....I used 6 ga. because it was an improvement over stock and it was cheaper and easier to work with for me.

Oh yeah - soldering the 6ga is a bitch unless you have a huge electrical soldering gun. I used 60/40 rosin core solder with a propane torch instead. If you turn the flame down and use gentle applications of the heat to the part (never the solder directly) I found I could solder all my 6 ga connections easily and quickly.

 

Pretty much every vehicle I've ever driven does that. I always notice it because I have a habit of paying close attention to my gauges when I can.