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Ever since drowning my car a while back and putting a new engine in, it's had some electrical issues. The lights are flickering (not going out, just dimming) and temp gauge needle bouncing in time with bumps in the road. It's fine on smooth roads. Engine mounts are stuffed, everything else seems to be done up tight.

Replaced the old alternator (1996 Impreza) with one from a 2004 Forester. Lights still flickering.

Battery now goes flat overnight. It's less than a year old, and the tester says it's ok but needs charging. Multimeter says there is zero parasitic load, but that probably says more about the multimeter than the car.

Today I noticed a faint buzzing noise from the alternator. The noise continued after pulling the plug (with the main wire to the battery still on).

So my questions:
-How should the alternator be connected? The car has one white and one black wire, the Foz alternator has terminals labelled C, S and L.
-Is the buzzing likely related to incorrect CSL connections and discharged battery?
-What else can I look at for the flickering lights issue?

Thanks,
Dane.

earthing points are corroded. you need to find them and clean em up.

you may also have faulty relays, they aren't all that waterproof...you did say you drowned the car....

buzzing from alternator is not a good sign

with the battery, just cause its 1year old doesn't mean it may not have a problem, disconnect it overnight then check for any self discharge.
Use a load like a 100w lamp to check with.

While wiring isn't really my strong point I do second the suggestion of bad "earths". These can cause no end of seemingly competely random problems.

With regards to alternator wiring, this thread has some good info and even a diagram;
showthread.php?t=3385&

The buzzing alternator is because you've wired it wrongly. I had the same problem when I installed my EJ22, it resulted in the buzzing alternator and a dead battery.

On my car the white wire goes through the fusible link to charge the battery. The black/white wire (your black) goes to the instrument panel. I have a third wire which is yellow, this goes via the ignition coil to the fuse panel. I'm guessing that the third wire wouldn't be needed in your case as the power for the coil would come from else where in the wiring harness. I don't know which wires connect to the CSL plug but maybe someone else here has access to a forester manual and could help you out with that.

Anyway I hope that helps.

Cheers Rob

This is the diagram I followed when I wired in the alternator to the L - no problems so far, but I haven't let the motor sit long enough (a week for example) to find out if there's a battery drain issue due to the alternator wiring.



OB posted this pic in my wiring question thread on the same sorta subject but in a different light.

Cheers

Bennie

Yep, follow the above diagram. It took me a few conversions to work out exactly what had to be done. I used to have a similar problem to you when doing conversions with the battery draining overnight. Now they work perfectly. Use your C terminal as where I have the Ign in the diagram.