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.

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

1st thing i would check is the battery wire on the alternator. they can come loose and cause those problems. next would be to check all of the grounds around the engine. then check voltage with the car running and see if the alt is the problem.

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

its prob the ignition switch. its the only common link between all your symptoms

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

It's almost certainly a grounding problem, even if all your grounding points are tight remove them and clean the connection. My accord would not even start one day (no turn over) because the grounds were bad, everything else came on normally. Also check your headlights wiring harness, they have ground on both sides of the car under the front bumper. make sure your battery connections are clean and tight, that causes some strange ---- sometimes. it couldn't be the ignition switch, or alternator. Also i don't know if your car has one but the accords have an ELD Sensor (electronic load detector) it controls what your alternator puts out and if it is loose or defective it will not work correctly. if your car has one it is located just over the fuse panel under the dash. (black box 3"L X 2"W X 1.5"H) Good luck.............

Re: 90 EF, intermittent battery light and jumpy tach
 

I agree
the jumpy tach usally is a bad ground on the thermostat housing, i have come across this many of times clean the conections wiht sand paper and redo the conection if needed , if u do voltage drop across the neg side toe the grounding points make sure they Ohm out...i have a wire gogin right from this connection to the neg terminal so it never gives me any more ----....
tha battey light flickering on off onn for a bit and then back off is a bad diod in the alternator get OEM cant go worng...or get a new one, yours should have a warrenty..i beleave that EF's dont have an ELD. it might be built into the voltage regulator in the ECU...

hope this helps