90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

This thing does some strange stuff and I've never really worked on 88-91's.

The battery light will come on sometimes, and sometimes just comes on 1/2 bright, and the tach is jumpy like the old ignitor problem. sometimes the door dinger comes on too tho when the doors have been closed for a while at random.

is my alternator just dying out or is there something else common that bugs out in these cars? the lights dont change brightness with rev's or anything

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

Even if you buy an rebuilt alternator you still may have the battery light issue. It actually says that when you buy one from Vatozone.

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

ok...so how do i get rid of the battery light? I don't know if this alternator has ever been replaced or not.

what of the jumpy tach and what not.

I had a strange symptom earlier where my fuel pump wasnt working too, but the spare main relay in the car fixed that.

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

When I swapped in my LS the light stays off. I had to resolder my main relay too.

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

Pull the bulb out of the cluster!!!

I had it a while ago, clean all the points and altenator with electronic cleaners, and booyya.

The tach? Ignitor again?

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

I've no problem trying a different one to see. so we'll see

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

Battery light is more than likely the alt going out, check you voltage when it comes on...also I had a jumpy tach with a known good ignitor..it was acctually just one of the wires was a little loose on it...just squeezed it closed a little tighter with slide it on

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

you may have a ground wire someplace shorting itslef out, sounds like when my antenna wiring was grinding tislef against my trunk
also blew some fuses
gave me the same symptoms, im sure its fuses

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

doies the battery light go out when you give it a touch of gas (like to 1000rpm) ? if so, then try raising the base idle using the TB screw. Otherwise, the alt is on it's way out..

oh.. and autozone and the like alternators suck. I got a autozone typish one and a week later it was full field charging (18+v). needless to say i noticed before anything caught fire. Second one has a bad bearing and whines and gets hot. On a hot day I can smell the sucker.

OEM Honda, worth the extra $$

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

check to make sure your not getting a voltage drop across your grounds.

Should be putting out 14v when charging. Make sure none of the wires to from the alternator are getting hot during normal operation.

Thats about all i can think of. If you wanted to check your battery lights functionality, slap a charger on the battery and see if the light goes out.