After a bit of driving in the morning it gets sluggish a bit and the dash lights and headlights fade in and out as if the car is running out of juice. But it hasnt completly stalled. This happened yesterday too but after parking and letting it run at idle it acted normal again. Does this sound like the alternator? We got the charging system checked about a month ago and about two weeks ago we replaced the battery. Thanks.

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Shouldn't bother putting this but hey what the heck:
1988 Maui Blue Firebird 305 TBI stock (w/ 190,000+ miles and still running strong )

 

Anyone?

 

Im gonna Say its all about the alt

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60 Ranchero - Project ( Money Hole )
85 Sport Coupe LG4 - Daily Driver

Livin' the Stereotype

 

well lets see...a quick check on your alternater is, crank the car, then take off your positive battery post, if the car dies, then your alternater is out. get a voltmeter and check the posts off the battery when the car is running. you should be getting anywhere from 13.0 - 14.4 volts.
since you checked your battery i assume, it should be cool. if not, take it to autozone, or a reatil parts house and have them do a load test on your battery.
last but not least, I believe your timing is way to advanced. that is why it is running right with no load on the engine (at idle in park) but when you drive, you get the problem (ecm advances timing) so it leads me to believe that your base timing has either been set incorrectly, or the hold down bolt on the distributer is loose and the timing jumped. just check all that easy stuff and let us know what you come up with.

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Problem Solved: Ok so it was the alternator. One interesting sign of it's failure(about 1-2 weeks before car got sluggish and lights began to dim) was that the dash lights were always slightly more dim than normal.

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Shouldn't bother putting this but hey what the heck:
1988 Maui Blue Firebird 305 TBI stock (w/ 190,000+ miles and still running strong )