89 Accord Alternator Light Flashes

Every now and then in the morning, my 89 accord dx will have the battery
light flash when I step on the brakes and the radio goes out
momentarily. It will sometime flash when driving. After its run for a
while it is fine. I have a new battery, and when I checked the voltage
to see if it is charging, it is fine at 14.5 volts. Has anybody
encountered this before? The car has 156,000 miles with original
alternator. I'm thinking that it may be the brushes in the alternator.
Could it be a loose connection, if so where? I doubt that it is the
regulator as my experience is that they are usually good or bad, not
intermittent. Any help would be appreciated.

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Note that this warning lamp misleadingly has a battery icon
on it. The lamp, when lit, actually denotes a problem with
the charging (and so alternator) system.

Yes, the brushes are a //very// strong possibility for an
alternator this old. See
http://home.earthlink.net/~honda.lioness/id13.html (about
one-third of the way down for alternator focus) for
discussion of this based on reading here and a bit of my own
experience.

Yes, that's possible, but my money is on either bad brushes,
bad bearings, or both.

The two alternator terminal connections are pretty secure
ones, so I'd start at the battery terminals. Disconnect,
clean with a solution of baking soda and water, and
re-secure the cables.

 

Alternator brushes almost 100%.

 

150K miles is a good life for brushes. As Elle and TeGGeR say, you can bet
that's the problem. The symptoms are a geat fit, too.

Mike

 

Elle, is your web page on the alternator ready for prime time yet? It looked
really good the last I saw but there were a couple pieces To Do.

Mike

 

Thanks, yes, the link above is good. If there's more input
for this site, I'm open to additions. Eric was going to get
back to me with info on some starter solenoid contacts, for
one, which I think is worth at least a footnote at this
site.

 

Sorry - I didn't notice you had already posted the link. Stupid brain!

Mike