Flickering Lights, Inside And Out - A Notorious Ford Problem?

[rwtomkins]

My Galaxy Mk II has had this problem from new and I even raised a thread about it many years ago with no results. What I find is that, quite often but most noticeably at the beginning and end of journeys, ALL the lights - all over the dashboard, all the passenger cabin lights, the side lights, the headlights, the lot - will flicker. Not on and off but just very, very rapidly flickering between bright and dim.

 

Bizarrely, this happens independently of whether the engine is running or not. But it's completely unpredictable. Sometimes it happens when the engine's running and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it happens when the engine's switched off and sometimes it doesn't. It seems to happen most often when you actually DO something - either switching on the engine or switching it off. Usually the effect disappears after a while all by itself.

 

It's more an irritation than a problem.

 

Today, after only about a decade of being irritated by this, I at last got around to taking the car to an auto electrician. He couldn't find anything wrong. But on returning just now I tried Googling it and did in fact find someone else talking about this on another forum. He suggested it was a notorious Ford problem and said there was a technical services bulletin about it. Here's what he said, with apologies for the lack of punctuation:

 

the problem is well known to ford and the cause is that there is a high resistance in the battery wiring harness from the central junction box under the bonnet to the b+terminal of the alternator the high resistance from the 7.5amp fuse causes the alternator to pulse and this causes the flickering of the lights both insisde and out and on the dash fords technical service bulletin recommends an additional wire should be installed which takes a new feed direct from the main battery cable on the back of the alternator the bulletin number was TSB 053/2001 Part number for this cable - 1133503 from what i can gather people who have done it themselves say that you should unplug the multiplug from the alternator and pull it up to the top of the engine, splice into the red wire, then solder the new wire on and wrap it up in tape. Then drop it back down and put the ring connector on 'under' the thick red cable connector and reconnect the plug The multiplug is on the alternator, just around the side from where the thick red cable mounts.

The instructions say that the wire should be soldered on about 10cm from the plug, so you'll need at least a bit more than that.

 

this flickering has been blamed on alternators etc etc so as i said to many before it is common for the ford lights to flicker and this applies to all models basically its up to the person wether or not they do it yet ford never issued a recall just a technical service bulletin stating that should a customer show concern then they were to advise of this new wire otherwise say nothing.

 

I just wondered if anyone else had had this problem or indeed whether anyone else had tried this modification? I'm certainly planning to give it a go.

[Mirez]

Its common-ish, but not for the problem you describe.

 

My first thought was also "alternator fault" as when they begin to fail they don't rectify the voltage correctly and you end up with a pulsed output but reading more of your post it physically can't be as you state it happens when the engines off.

[rwtomkins]

I just phoned Ford Technical Services - at

[sotal]

That problem with the alternator applies to the 2.5 V6 Cougar and Mondeo, not heard of it for any others - I have a 2.0 Cougar and it doesn't affect that. Also AFAIK it only affects them with the engine running.

 

 

If you're really fussed about it try unplugging the radio and see if it goes away - I'm sure there was a batch of faulty OEM headunits which caused some kind of earth issue which caused pulsing lights. If it is that I think the fix for that was to run an extra earth wire to the headunit.

[rwtomkins]

That problem with the alternator applies to the 2.5 V6 Cougar and Mondeo, not heard of it for any others - I have a 2.0 Cougar and it doesn't affect that. Also AFAIK it only affects them with the engine running.

 

 

If you're really fussed about it try unplugging the radio and see if it goes away - I'm sure there was a batch of faulty OEM headunits which caused some kind of earth issue which caused pulsing lights. If it is that I think the fix for that was to run an extra earth wire to the headunit.

 

Yes, I think the Ford guy said the Cougar thing only happened with the engine running and the curious thing about mine is that it happens with the engine switched on or off. If it starts while the engine is on, it usually stops when you turn the engine off, and if it starts while the engine is off, it often stops when you turn the engine on!

 

I'll try that radio thing and thanks for that. Also, is there a single fuse that serves all the lighting circuits, interior and exterior? If there were, it might be worth having a poke around that. I'm looking for something that affects all the lighting circuits simultaneously.