electrical question
 

I have something strange happening with Penny.
I noticed a few days ago that the lights behind the gear markers in the dash were flickering. Didn't really think anything of it. This morning I drove in the dark (that rarely happens) and discovered that all my lights are flickering. Dash lights, dome light, and headlights. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to drive to work. By the time I got there, the flickering had ceased.
I took Penny to my shop this afternoon and had them check the battery and alternator, both checked out ok, although the alternator is running a bit low.
But, I had driven the 15-20 minutes back to my mechanic from work and the flickering had ceased when the guy was checking it. Almost as if the battery had fully charged while driving for that amount of time.
The terminals are kinda corroded and they suggested that I clean them off, which I will do.
Anyone have any other insight?

~~Michelle

My recommendation would be the same with regards to the battery terminals.

Mike
Kerven Subaru

Clean the terminals. If it comes back, your alternator is going to die soon.

L

I heard if you superglue "pennies" to your battery one next to the positive and one next to the negative terminals they attract the corrosive chemicals keeping them away from your terminals. Check the harness leading to your alternator and make sure it's plug is securely clipped into the socket in the alternator. Make sure the connection is clean too. The same thing happened to me a couple of months ago and that was it.

might want to take the other ends of the cables loose and give them a wire brushing clean-up to make sure the conenctions are good on both ends. the cable connection (from the negative post) to the body was a bit corroded on mine.

Flickering
 

Michelle

I agree 100% with what people have said above, particularly if you have that corrosion on your terminals. You need to clean that off, and retighten the battery terminal connections, having first smeared petroleum jelly or some such over the posts to keep corrosion at bay.

As the flickering was noticable on your dash lights and your headlights, you should also do a little further checking. You may have a bad earth connection, or a poorly seated relay on your lights. You should open, clean and tighten/reseat the earth connection to the fuse board in the wheel well, and also the earth connection for the fuse/relay board under the hood. They will be easy to find, as they will be the ones screwed to the metal of the body, and are usually black in colour.

Joe

flickering
 

Ran my 92 for quite a while with this problem, annoying, but car never died on me. Did the battery cable upgrade and it was still there. Changed the alternator and it was finally fixed.

electrical
 

truthfully replace the alternater, with either bosch 110amp, with the upgrade to the battery is a must. or you can go with the o.e. style from subaru, with no worries