This is truly strangeness. I suspect a bad alternator/regulator, or a really intermittent ground. Two things happened. First let me point out that this car is an aftermarket slantnose kit and the lights and bucket assemblies are completely unknown until I can dig into one. But the right side light stopped raising, yet the light comes on. The same time this happened the car began to stall when I would come to a stop with the lights on. Strange thing with this is, car stalls, lights go out. As SOON as the engine has completely stopped turning, lights come back on, and I can start the car up again. It did something similar to this when I first got the car, but I found a broken battery terminal on the old batter (internal) and it's been fine since I replaced the battery with a new one.

Under way the volt-meter says it's charging, but it jumps around. Oh, one other thing, if I turn the headlights on while the car is running, as in driving down the road, the car stalls for a split second, radio resets, etc. And also, when it stalls out, for a brief instant everything dies, until the engine has stopped turning, then it comes back on again.

Regulator, relay? Any ideas? I know the light bucket not raising is a different problem, but it started happening at the same time.

Regards,
Russell

 

Russ, Strup here. The car stalled a few times on me last spring when coming to a stop but never at night, so I dont know if the lights went dim. But it went away just as quickly and never did it again. As for the headlight, it uses Mazda motors, from a RX7. You can push the bucket up from a small hole in the bottom, or it might be a screw-type turn method. I have a spare motor if you want it? I dont know if it works or not. (shipping only). Hope this helps

 

Well it did the stall thing on me a few times, undoing the disconnect and re-attaching always fixed that, then one day I just wiggled the battery terminal itself with the key on and things went on and off. So I replaced the battery and that was fixed. This is something different, seems to have only to do with the lights being on. So I'm wondering if there's a bad wire/switch/motor/something in the mix there. It just started doing this after it rained on it. So it could simply be due to that. If I start the car, or am driving with the rpms above idle now and turn on the lights, the car stumbles like you turned the ignition on and back off. It's really strange. And the reason I wondered about regulator or relay is that if the car stalls at night now, the lights, and everything electric goes off, until the engine shuts off completely, then everything comes back on again, and you can restart the engine. So there may be an assortment of issues all working together! Whatever it is, I'll find it. Spare motors might be good to have. But I'll let you know on that, I want to pull the bucket and look at all of it and see if I can find the problem, the passenger side light was 'lazy' already, it never came up fully. So there could be something bent that is supposed to engage a limit switch, bad switch, bent linkage, bad motor, something loose, all of the above. I really won't know until I dig into it. Hopefully tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!

Regards,
Russell

 

Okay, I got to tinker with it a bit today. There is nothing wrong with the headlight motor, as I can make it engage by turning the little wheel inside the bucket. Again, this is a slantnose kit with flipup lights. So there must just be a bad switch in there that got wet in the rain. Also, I played with it with the car sitting in the driveway idling, no stalling or surging of the engine, which is weird. I'm still thinking there might be something wrong in the alternator/regulator as my volt meter still jumps around when the car is running, even just idling. Turn anything on, and it seems to create a heavy load, then immediately bounce back to full charging. That sounds like a regulator to me, what do you guys think?

Regards,
Russell

 

+1

recently replaced my alternator. it was hard to pinpoint the issue at first as it was intermittend but gradually got worse. the regulator was shot so it was overcharging and cooked the battery. prior to that the only clue was a bouncy tacho and sometimes the volt meter would jump around.

 

Okay, did some more tinkering. I found the issue with the headlight not flipping up was the cam on the motor/gearbox shaft had come loose. The nut fell off the shaft, but the mechanism has been welded, and has a few bent/broken pieces inside. I was able to make it work to pass inspection, but will replace the parts with new shortly. Not a big deal at all. Oh, the car passed emissions in MA without a cat, pretty impressive. I have also found the main electrical problem, the ground coming from the battery is faulty. I'm going to replace it with a new ground strap. The oddities happen when this connection would break and the car would be running only off the alternator. I believe the alternator is fine, but the surges of lights coming on, motors running, etc just over taxed the alternator regulator's output. I'm fairly certain the new ground strap will remedy these problems!

Have an appointment friday to do a baseline dyno run!

Regards,
Russell