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in dash volt meter dips when signaling??!!


MANGO
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Ok, I have a high amp alternator on the car, it's an 89 five speed.  

Howcome the volt meter in the dash dips or fluctuates downward everytime the left or right turn signal blinks?  Here's another one, when I turn on the wipers, they're wipe sooooo SLOWWWWW!!!!!

 

Is this a relay issue or what???

Please advise

 

Thanks,

MANGO

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Mine has always done that. I have even had new cars that are affected by the turn signals. It takes a lot of power to turn on all of those bulbs. You might try replacing your turn signal relay.  make sure it is rated for your car.
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Where would the turn signal relay be located?  I'm just as curious to find out how its condition is.

How about the wipers being glacially slow to wipe, any one have similar problems with this?

I'm sure the alternator set up I have generates quite a bit of power, just that the electrical components aren't taking advantage of it or perhaps there's a crappy relay that's not allowing all the power to get through to these electrical components.

 

MANGO

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Watch out! It will soon drain your battery. Mine did (still does) that and later, it drained my battery. I thought that the alternator was the problem so I changed and it got little better but after a month, that alternator went dead so they gave me a new one. It's doing ok for now but Im starting to see the same thing happening.

When Im driving, the voltmeter stays at about 12.5 during daytime. During night, I have hard time trying to keep it at 12. Any inputs will be appreciated.

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WOW!!!! :o :o :o

I'm a bit surprised that we all have this irritating problem and nobody seems to have come up with a fix or a solution that would be worthy enough of being placed in the FAQ.

 

See, on mine, when it does dip down, it dips a good dash mark.  You know, how the volt meter has these dash marks for increments, mine dips down a good increment lower!!!  :-/ :-/ :-/

 

I'm sure we've all seen this where at a traffic light waiting for it to turn green and our signal is going and the volt meter needle is busy playing hokey pokey up and down while we're idling and signaling at the same time, but the thing is on mine, even at full throttle barreling down the freeway, signaling to change lanes, you'd think given that the belts are spinning faster than at idle and the alternator cranking that the volt meter needle wouldn't dip as much, mine still dips a good dash mark lower!

 

Somebody get an automobile electrician in here, this thing is bugging the hell out of me!

 

MANGO

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Well,

 

I just put a 90amp alternator in, and before and after I have the same problem. I have the luxury of having a haltech w/ laptop in the car, and it will tell me the system voltage (and I can datalog it). While the voltmeter is oscillating, the haltech is reporting stable voltage.

 

The same deal with just leaving your car running in the driveway, pop the hood, throw in a voltmeter on the battery terminals. Kick your signal on, and watch the gauge oscillate, and notice how the voltage readout on the voltmeter is stable.

 

I think the "general" consensus is that the voltmeter gets its reading from the same harness as the rest of the gauge cluster, such as, but not limited to, the turn signal dash lights. As the turn signal light blinks, the voltmeter reads a voltage drop each time.  You can see some of this theory by studying the diagram from the 88 electrical manual: http://www.tristarion.com/88htmlmanual/Ele...trical-172.html

 

Joel

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when i first got my car it had a crappy old battery in it and i could tell the windows rolled down slow, the wipers and so on. the voltage dipped with TS's also.  the battery read good voltage but didnt have the output.  I went a got a new one from advance, which is wrong but thats another problem.  and all of those things go away.  if its your alternator you can usually tell if revving your car helps out.  like if your rolling up your window and it goes faster if you rev the car.  same thing with your headlights, if they get brighter when you rev higher.
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Just like all mitsubishi electronics, they are crap..

The cause is that the light for the turn signal is wired to closely to the volt meter gauge, so light turns on gauge goes down..and so on...

Like all our gauges they are about as accurate as those crapy gauges you get at k-mart, you know "sunpro" 3 gauges, 15$ LOL LOL

Like our temp gauge, H = 300 some degrees...already cracked the head...

Boost 14psi = blown motor, mine says bout 10psi when i run 25psi..LOL

fuel guage works :P

so on and so forth, no need to swap out alts every couple weeks guys... :P

l8tr

-Edward

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mine did the same dam thing after i replaced the original alternator.  it got to the point that it would blink about three times, needle dips about 1.5 increments and stop blinking!!  anyway, last week i replaced the flasher with an electronic flasher, now the needle dips only about a quarter increment, and it doesn't stop blinking anymore.   it blinks slow compare to other cars, but it BLINKS! ::)
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I was having a similar problem with my blinkers.

 

During the day when I was driving with only my driving lights (fog lights actually - fog light mod) I would turn on my blinker at a turn while idling, and it would blink fine, slow but fine.

 

At night driving with my head lights on, I would be at a stop idling and my turn signal would blink a couple times then stop blinking but stay on.

 

It was bugging me, when I rebuilt my engine and whent ahead and put in a new stock replacment alternator, no change.

Later replaced the battery with a good 850 CCA cell, no change.

 

I tried putting in a couple LED brake lights thinking maybe the lighter amp load would help, but to my surprise, my blinkers stopped working al-together.

 

Turns out, the blinker relay in our car is a mechanical unit that "clicks" back and forth when enough heat is generated through the turn signal circuit.

 

I went down to Schuck's and picked up a two prong electric blinker and everything works great now.

 

My turn signal's blink faster and they never stop blinking when they're not supposed to, even with the head lights on.

 

My volt gauge still dips with every blink though.

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we have owned over 30 starions, we used to buy and sell them. they all did the dip when signaling. its normal. the slow wiper is another unrelated matter.

 

check for corroded connections/ wrong amperage fuse/ proper battery ground

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Ever had your dash apart? Everything on the dash cluster is powered through a circuit board-type connection. And it's not a very good one, either.

 

What you're seeing when the voltmeter is doing the dip is either the cluster doesn't have enough power to it to power the light, or the ground loop changes when the light comes on (and changes back when it goes off). Totally normal for our cars.

 

If you want fun, have a fire like I did. Then, when you turn on your right blinker, the tachometer needle oscillates between 0 rpm and 3,000 rpm. ;)

 

Your wiper motor needs either rebuilding or replacing. Mine does the same thing.

 

Jess

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What about the relays?  How often should we replace those?  I've got a serious electrical problem where it just seems to kill my battery.  I'm running an Optima Redtop battery 800CCA, and a CS130 alternator that was rebuilt a couple of months ago.  It's an 86 Tsi, and as you can see in my pics, those relays look old.  

 

http://www.starquestclub.com/index.pl?boar...;num=1060628022

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has anyone tried LED tail lights and turn signals yet?

 

just wondering, I haven't yet.

 

20mA current draw = 1 LED

standard LED bulb 15 LEDs = 3 Amps per bulb

 

5 Amp current draw when flashing on standard bulb

 

multiplied by how many bulbs?

 

also try a new ground cable from the battery to the chassis ( 4 guage)

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Using the stock turn signal relay, LED tail lights will most likely keep your blinker circuit from working at all, since the load is lighter and not enough heat is generated.

 

A new blinker relay is probably the easiest and best way to go.

Worked for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yuppers, you definately want to switch over to an electronic flasher when you make the swap over to LED bulbs.  

 

Also correct with the voltage dip, they all do that...

 

As for the problem with the alt/battery dying... go thru the basics first.  After checking the main ground (goes from the battery to the engine block behind the alt) and the power wire from the back of the alt. to the battery (which probably isn't a bad idea to upgrade anyway, it's kinda undersized).  If nothing comes from checking those out, take a look at the parasitic loss on the battery.  If it's unusually high, start pulling fuses.  After you've pulled the fuse causing the high amp draw, you can then narrow it down to that circuit.  

 

Don't try to over-complicate the problem... it's all just nuts and bolts.  :)  

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... If nothing comes from checking those out, take a look at the parasitic loss on the battery.  If it's unusually high, start pulling fuses. ...

 

Hmmm, I have a question.

How do you measure "parasitic loss" at the battery?

 

Think this might be a good thing to test on mine, just not sure how to go about it.

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Hay guys,  :oI think the reason for meter dip when signaling is because of the type of relay used, it uses a capicator, the capicator has to charge up in order to fire the relay to flash the bulb, so as the capicator charges, that makes the needle drop.  Thats why an electronic flasher does not make the meter dip, because it does not use a capicator.  

 

I also used led lights in all six rear lights, it was a pain to figure out, expensive and probably not worth all the effort. :-/

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Could always do what I did in a Buick that I worked on once....find the wire that feeds the gauge, and wire it directly to the battery....you will always know what kind of power you have, key on or off.

 

Didn't discharge the battery, either.....worked nicely.  Might be a little bit less of a lie.

 

Tim

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Hay guys,  :oI think the reason for meter dip when signaling is because of the type of relay used, it uses a capicator, the capicator has to charge up in order to fire the relay to flash the bulb, so as the capicator charges, that makes the needle drop.  Thats why an electronic flasher does not make the meter dip, because it does not use a capicator.  

 

I also used led lights in all six rear lights, it was a pain to figure out, expensive and probably not worth all the effort. :-/

 

Actually, I've got a electric flasher in mine, but the meter still dips, blinks fine, but still dips.

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