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85 firebird. All lights flickering.

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Old Jun 16, 2018 | 07:53 PM
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85 firebird. All lights flickering.

Headlights, interior lights, gauge lights, all my lights are flickering. Installed a new battery and did not fix the problem. Positive and negative cables are clean aswell. Ground issue? Any ideas, thanks guys.
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Old Jun 16, 2018 | 08:09 PM
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Re: 85 firebird. All lights flickering.

Originally Posted by Held
Headlights, interior lights, gauge lights, all my lights are flickering. Installed a new battery and did not fix the problem. Positive and negative cables are clean aswell. Ground issue? Any ideas, thanks guys.
Presumably this only happens with the engine running , and when the engine is off the lights don't flicker ? If so , when my car did that it was the alternator . A quick test for this is to unplug the small (2 wire ?) plug from the alternator with the engine running , if the flickering stops (lights may get a slight bit dimmer because your stopping the alternator from making power) it's a very good indication your alternator is the cause .
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Old Jun 16, 2018 | 08:20 PM
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Re: 85 firebird. All lights flickering.

Originally Posted by OrangeBird
Presumably this only happens with the engine running , and when the engine is off the lights don't flicker ? If so , when my car did that it was the alternator . A quick test for this is to unplug the small (2 wire ?) plug from the alternator with the engine running , if the flickering stops (lights may get a slight bit dimmer because your stopping the alternator from making power) it's a very good indication your alternator is the cause .
Everything flickers the same with engine off and engine running also the speed of the flickering doesn't change when accelerating.
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Old Jun 17, 2018 | 08:22 AM
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Re: 85 firebird. All lights flickering.

Originally Posted by Held
Everything flickers the same with engine off and engine running also the speed of the flickering doesn't change when accelerating.
Ok so since it's not engine running/not running related , yes you do likely have a bad (loose & arcing) connection somewhere . Shouldn't be too hard to find since it sounds like the whole lighting system is affected . The "backyard mechanic" way of troubleshooting this is to start wiggling wire harnesses to see which one makes a change in the flickering , or you could go "high tech" and break out the voltmeter and start looking for large voltage drops across the various harnesses/connectors the power passes through on it's way to the lighting circuit(s) .
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