Taking out the old alternator… there were only THREE wires. A big red and big black (which seemed to go to Field and Battery)
A third one we assumed went to ground as the wire just runs to the bottom of the engine.
We installed the new alternator fine and put the wires to battery, field, and ground.
We also installed a new regulator.
The car started fine.
Then we tried the two tests the instructions asked for.
put the voltage meter BLACK to the negative on the battery and the RED to the top of the alternator.
It should read .00
Then start it. And it should go only to .01
Any higher and you have a bad ground.
It went to .4
But we can’t find a bad ground.
check voltage on battery with engine running.
Should be between 13.8-14.5v
It’s at most 12.35
So I have a few questions:
the STATOR connection. Should we have a wire for that?
The new voltage regulator doesn’t seem to be hurting or helping. Should I take it back?
I started installing a 140 amp 1-wire alternator last night, but I realized I don’t have big enough clippers/crimpers for the new wire, so that project is stalled out until I get to the right tools.
at about our 7th time taking off the brackets and re-wiring the back… we finally took it to O’Reilleys and asked them to test it.
They did (and it passed) but I asked if I could take a photo of how the computer told him to hook it up.
Wouldn’t you know… it was the ONE wiring setup we didn’t try.
Ground, Field, Bat (no Stater)
We got close at one point (there were only 3 wires and 4 possible places to hook them up) but never got it until we saw it at O’Reilleys.
