Success & Failure in the same night..
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 258
Likes: 2
From: Boise ID
Success & Failure in the same night..
In an attempt to stop my volt meter from swinging all over the place, I bought an alternator repair kit & replaced the voltage regulator, diode, brushes & front bearing. Not to bad.. for 20 bucks, I get new components & keep my chrome alternator. 
Unfortunately, when I put it back in, I forgot to hook up the connections to the alternator before hooking up the battery & cranking it over. The battery charging wire then shorted against the case of the alternator making a very nice fireworks show.
Anyhoo, long story short, the alternator's fine, but I fried the alternator to battery charging wire. Poking around with my ohmmeter, it looks like there's an open in the wire where it's routed inside the frame.
I'm thinking I'd better just replace the wire, and am wondering if there's any tricks to getting the old one out and/or the new one in.
Also, is the wire there 10 or 8 guage? It says 10 in the shop manual, but the 10 guage I bought for my bubba temporary fix looks a hair smaller than the existing wire.
Thanks!!
Dan
Unfortunately, when I put it back in, I forgot to hook up the connections to the alternator before hooking up the battery & cranking it over. The battery charging wire then shorted against the case of the alternator making a very nice fireworks show.
Anyhoo, long story short, the alternator's fine, but I fried the alternator to battery charging wire. Poking around with my ohmmeter, it looks like there's an open in the wire where it's routed inside the frame.
I'm thinking I'd better just replace the wire, and am wondering if there's any tricks to getting the old one out and/or the new one in.
Also, is the wire there 10 or 8 guage? It says 10 in the shop manual, but the 10 guage I bought for my bubba temporary fix looks a hair smaller than the existing wire.
Thanks!!
Dan
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 258
Likes: 2
From: Boise ID
I thought about the fuse link too...
I looked at the starter, and everything looks good there. The service manual sez that the charging circuit goes thru there too, but when I chase the wire, it looks like it goes directly from the alternator to the battery, via the junction box in the battery compartment.
There's a wire conduit running under the car from just in front of the battery box thru the frame, then up to the alternator. The conduit contains a black wire going from the battery ground point on the rear crossmember up to the alternator area and a red wire going from the junction box to the alternator. Both wires are ~10 guage. I haven't noticed anything branching over toward the starter.
Now to put a disclaimer on everything here, there has been quite a bit of work done on the car by previous owners, and perhaps this isn't original, but on the other hand, the aforementioned black wire isn't hooked up near the alternator. Not sure why somebody would run it & not use it.
I was planning on just pulling a new wire thru the conduit (maybe with a fuse this time).
Any other ideas?? If it's supposed to go thru the starter, maybe I'll try to figure out how to do that, although direct wires are definitely simpler.
Thanks,
Dan
There's a wire conduit running under the car from just in front of the battery box thru the frame, then up to the alternator. The conduit contains a black wire going from the battery ground point on the rear crossmember up to the alternator area and a red wire going from the junction box to the alternator. Both wires are ~10 guage. I haven't noticed anything branching over toward the starter.
Now to put a disclaimer on everything here, there has been quite a bit of work done on the car by previous owners, and perhaps this isn't original, but on the other hand, the aforementioned black wire isn't hooked up near the alternator. Not sure why somebody would run it & not use it.
I was planning on just pulling a new wire thru the conduit (maybe with a fuse this time).
Any other ideas?? If it's supposed to go thru the starter, maybe I'll try to figure out how to do that, although direct wires are definitely simpler.
Thanks,
Dan
