94 Thunderbird electrical problems

I have a 94 Thunderbird with a V-8 (4.6L, I believe) I was driving home last night and the radio, heater, headlights, dash lights went off and on a couple times as I was leaving the highway. I pulled into the gas station to get fuel and the car would not restart. The battery was dead.

Today, I pulled the alternator (sure that was the problem) and had it checked. It was outputting 15 Volts slightly above the range that the auto parts person said it should be (13-14V). Next I got the car jumped started and drove it home, about 5 miles. On the way I didn't have any accessories running. The battery meter was pointing straight up when the car was jumped. During the drive, it started going down about 2 miles into the trip. Once I got into the residential area, near home, the battery meter started dropping. I pulled into the driveway and it read 8 in the red part of the gauge. I turned the car off and immediately tried to start it and no luck. The battery was once again dead.

What is my next course of action? Replace alternator and spend the $190 and hope its fixed? Replace the battery and hope that helps? Or did I overlook somthing else?

Thank you for taking the time to read this lenghty post.

Brian

New to the forum... somewhat new to the T-Bird. My mother had an 87 Turbo Coupe back in '87 and it was pretty cool. Felt loose and comfortable (suspension) just driving around. Slam the pedal down and turbo kicked in... suspension electronically tightens up and you were flying. Not so much top end but had a lot of action taking off from a dead stop. Either way, the most impressive 4-cylinder I've ever drove.

Anyhow - I just bought a '93 T-Bird 5.0 today. Picked it up in Chicago - I live in Indianapolis. When I picked it up the main issue I was disappointed with was when I turned on A/C or defrost the engine would die when at idle. Clutch would spin. Almost seemed like the compressor was drawing more current than the alternater could put out. At first I thought maybe a weak alternator or a bad battery. The RPM's would drop way down and try to keep running but a few seconds later not recover. Their mechanic took a look at it and said it must be a bad compressor. I had him unplug the compressor for now until I get it resolved and then talked the salesman down a few hundred bucks off the price of the car for the replacement.

Driving home...

I stopped at a gas station and notice my headlights flickering. VERY WEIRD. Very disappointing. First thought is "Man this car might be an electrical mess." Debated turning back around but buying AS-IS I thought I'll have to just deal with this later. At the time I couldn't figure out what was triggering the lights to do this. I was messing with the lightswitch, turning on the brights... whatever - it finally stopped. In fact, the 3 hour drive home it didn't do it at all.

Tonight when I came to a stoplight I noticed it doing it again as it was flashing all the cars passing in front of me. Pulled over at a gas staion and again started messing with switches and noticed that my fog light switch (indicator) was also flashing. Turned the foglights off and the headlights stopped flashing. Cool. I've narrowed it down a little... "keep the foglights off until I figure this out."

Other than that - the car is great... love it.

It still bothered me though because these are factory foglights, not someone half-ass installing some Autozone foglights or something. So I searched Google. I found the answer to my headlight problem.

I learned Ford had a recall on headlight switches for this EXACT problem. But this site goes into further detail as to what symtoms could occur and what to check and his (their?) advice on an ALTERNATE wiring for the foglights. Very, very cool.

Here's the link: http://www.35ththunderbirdregistry.org/Tips/HeadlightsFlicker.htm

(note what to check depending on how bad or how long the short could have been going on.)

I also read from a different site of a grounding problem of the cable for the negative battery terminal. Saying to remove cable end (not on battery... the other end.) Clean surface & cable end and reinstall.

Now... between these two problems may lie both our answers. Maybe not... just trying to help. And also trying to find an answer myself. This is how I came upon this forum - was from a google search on electrical problems with thunderbirds.

To All: I apologize for the long post but Brian & I can not be the only ones who have, or have had, or have seen or heard of these problems. These cars are now 9 & 10 years old. SOMEONE in this forum MUST know something or could offer some advice of things to check. I am going to do the wiring modification from the link above and clean the negative cable ground.

Could this possibly be our answers? Do we have completely different problems? I'll let you know what I find out.

Brian, keep us updated if you find the answer.


-Jammen

Output of altenator is both amps and volts. Check for clean terminals, and have autozone check for proper amps to battery along with volts.

I had the same problem in my 96 3.8, accessories flashing on and off, the car dieing at idle. Turned out being nothing more than corroded battery connectors, cut the old ones off and replaced them with some gold plated ones and cleaned the battery terminals. No more problems since then.

BrianM80, I agree with Soupnutz. Check all the connections and make sure they are good. I tend to think the alternator is not charging and would be the next step. An alternator can put out 14 volts all day long but may not be able to put out enough amps to charge your battery. Additionaly, when you got a jump start the other car partially charged your batteries so it may not be an issue with the terminals on your battery. May have corrosion on the terminals of your alternator or your alternator is junk. Alot of these parts houses cannot test an alternator for amp output only volt output. A simple test you can do at home is to start the car and disconnect the battery, if the car dies, your alternator is toast.

Jammen, you made some very good points. The '93 is the only one I know of that had that issue with the headlamp switch. Go talk to Ford and have them look up on Oasis any recalls that may be open on your vehicle. If it has not been performed it is a free fix for you at the dealership. Don't mod anything with the headlights as this may void the recall.