flickering lights 66 dart

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camarocasanova

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My 66's lights are flickering while driving, headlights, even the dash lights. The dash gauge goes back and forth charge/no charge constantly, the guy I bought the car from said it's a "dodge thing" but I know it must be a ground problem. Can anyone shed some light on places to start to find what ground may be causing this?
 
I agree. Just updated my 67 to the dual field set up,and what a huge difference it makes. In my opinion it should be one of the very first upgrades done to a pre '69 Mopar.
 
my 69 Dart does the same thing... sometimes the voltage will just instantly go way down, radio will shut off for a second, tap the gas pedal, poof, everything gets bright again... I have changed the regulator more times than I care to remember, finally going to an elctronic one, changed to a dual field altenator as well.. that helped, for a short time the lights and all stayed constant and steady... but in a very short time we are back to the same issue.. it keeps me from driving the car at night for the most part, and is actually a pretty irratating problem.. I have no idea what keeps causing this.. eventually i am gonna get pissed off and rip every single inch of wiring out of that car, and spend years and a fortune putting all back together LOL ... any other ideas as to what causes this would be appreciated...
 
Extreemly dirty/bad grounds. Check all of your grounds,make sure all metal is clean and rust free and that all grounds are firmly mounted to clean bare metal.

Could be the replacement alt is junk,since you say it fixed the problem for a short while.
 
I would be checking the alternater too. A bad amp gauge can do that also.
 
Check every grond on the car,and clean/scuff them up.

Clean/scuff the firewall connectors.

Make sure your alternator is up to snuff.

Make sure the amp gauge is tight. Disconect the battery when checking this.

Go to a constant output voltage regulator. There is one for the early A's that looks exactly like the factory one. For 67-69 there is a blue one for that application. After cleaning everything up,this regulator really makes a big improvement

One other thing. Sometimes when people paint there cars they dont scrape the paint off the car where the voltage regulator or the ECU are mounted. It is imperitive that these are grounded to the body.

Kind of off subject: You can get replacement halogen headlight bulbs for your old sealed beam bulbs. Helps light things up.
 
amp gauge is new, altenator is new and has been checked... actually, the electronic voltage regulator was the last thing new to go on, and thats when the issue was temporarily resolved... but the problem returned about a week later...
 
I too would check all grounds but in addition check the connectors at the firewall and/or get rid of them by crimping and soldering the pass-thru wires. You really only need to do the big fat red one (going to the ammeter) and fat black one coming from the ammeter and going back to the alternator. Also check all your wires at the regulator for good connections. FYI, the newer alternators have only one field winding, not two but they do have 2 terminals because neither of them are internally grounded.
 
ok well put in new regulator, it is a little better, the alternator is a newer autozone type replacement, there is a ground strap from the block to the firewall, it still does it a bit when idling, but it has a radical (for a 273) cam in it so it does not idle smoothly. It seems under rpms it is ok at this point but I have not driven it yet so we will see. I hope that fixes it because man it sucks driving with the lights doing that you think you're going crazy!
 
Regulator. Mine has done the same thing with replacement regulators and I switched back to my original one for the best results. The smoothest regulator I had on was a electronic one but it charged at 14.6 volts wether it needed it or not. It ended up boiling my battery dry and burning out my tach and most of my light bulbs. Apparently a bad ground to the firewall caused that problem.
toolman
 
One connection that rarely gets checked is neg battery cable to block.
Try to pull the wire out of the terminal. If you can you need a new cable.
If you can't , then remove the bolt and clean the terminal , etc.. with a wire brush. Heat, moisture, oil, all effect this contact point.
 
check ,clean and grease all you connections. bulkhead is a big one. i pulled mine apart and it was all green in there. made a huge difference when i cleaned my connections and replaced bad wires.


i also like the dual fld regulator/alt. better too. just seems to be more stable.
 
Thanks guys! My wagon just started doing this too. Also my Temp and Fuel gauges only work about once a month. I got a new 5V regulator but have not installed it yet. I have replaced the Battery, Radiator and Waterpump. I better go back and check all my grounds now.
 
My Dart will does it too. If I stop some where for a while and let it rest it is good again for a little while. I think the head light switch is getting hot. I think putting a relay in will help but have not done it yet.
 
Just a thought...replace your headlight switch? Although, what most people are saying sounds correct. I like to change the switches to new as soon as I can...but thats me...clean all the connection too.

Aloha!
 
Yeah I turned on my lights the other night and they did not come on. I wiggled the switch and they came on, so it must be the switch I think.
 
My Duster is doing the very same thing with the lights and volt gauge flickering. I have checked everything from grounds to new regulator and new alternator. I just can't figure it out. It is very annoying driving at night.
 
I was jiggling the light switch last night and all of my gauges started working!
I have to get in there next week while I am off and get this stuff squared away.
 
I made time to work on this over the break.
I replaced the light switch with one from Kragen ($18 if I remember)
When I took out the old one I could see where the connector had heated up and melted some. I got it hooked back up and the headlights are working, and so is my fuel guage. But I am not sure if the dash lights work (have not driven it at night yet)

Where can I get a new connector for the light switch?
 
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