help with lights, and battery trouble
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New User
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 4
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From: Duke, OK
help with lights, and battery trouble
I have a 99 f-150 4x4 with a v-8 triton, 4.6 liter. I just hit 115,000 miles and all of the sudden my battery was dead, wouldn't do anything. I asked a ford dealership about it and they said my alternator might be bad. so I went and bought a new battery and an alternator. I haven't had any problems with my battery and that was about 2 or 3 weeks ago. But ever since my battery light comes on at various speeds and rpm. sometimes even when just idling and not moving at all. when the battery light comes on my headlights and dash lights dim. sometimes it does this for long periods of time like 10 mins or so and other times it flickers on and off every 2 to 10 seconds. any ideas???
Thread Starter
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New User
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: Duke, OK
I had the alternator checked and its fine. It's a new battery so could it be my computer not allowing the alternator to charge? About a week or so before this started I had to jumpstart one of our tractors that has two six volt batteries, at first I hooked it up wrong without knowing it and within a minute or two the cable started smoking and my engine on my truck nearly died but I disconnected it before it did. could this have damaged my computer or something?
Logistics Pro
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,595
Likes: 52
From: Lawton, Oklahoma
Fortunately for you the 99 F150 is not a PCM regulated alternator. It is possible that you may have weakened the wiring by heat, or one of the fusible links. The wiring goes all the way to the instrument cluster and you may have damaged it as well. Unfortunately you went about the repair procedure in large chunks rather than in a stepped manner. You should have replaced the battery which at its age could have naturally expired. By installing the new alternator you dont know if you put a bad reman on or not. I would put the original back on, and see how it acts then since you tested it and it tests good. If all runs fine then your new alternator was bad.... which I have seen many many times. If you still have the problems you are going to have to do a wire by wire inspection till you find the fault.
