electrical issues!

Hi Ray - try this - with batt =POS= Cable disconnected- remove the largest wire on the new alternator(should be the "Bat" wire) about a 10 gague wire. With that disconnected & out of way.= reconnect (touch lightly) the pos batt cable to the battery-look for a small spark when just touching it-if none(spark at cable) =(with big pos-batt cable again removed ) reconnect the alternator battery wire to alternator. Re test =battery (pos) (cable to battery->> any spark?? let me know ,Matt

Ok guys, I took a look and a drive today.

I think im making progress. The 1st starter solenoid I bought is on the van and doing its job (took the other one back and got my $ back) I had a couple of wires switched around.

Took it for a drive today and the gen light stayed on the whole time, but now when I remove the key it goes off. This is a step in the right direction because I believe that caused my battery drain.

There is one wire im not sure what to do with. I believe its a ground wire (red and black)

On the generator it had 3 wires. A large battery wire, a black/green wire which I believe goes to the idiot light and a red/black wire which i think is the ground.

I have the alternator wired like so. Batter Cable hooked up to battery terminal. #1 terminal I have the idiot light wire, #2 terminal I have a wire from there to the battery terminal.

What Im confused about is what do I do with the red/black ground wire that was hooked up to the generator. Should I just ground it to the body?

I used this pic posted by donivan on another thread tp set the alt up.

Check the regulator, check how you connected the new alternator, maybe you hooked it up wrong. Also>>>>>>> Check ground straps and connections between the battery, engine, and body.

This is the alt I bought brand new from summit.

It says 1 wire but It has a battery terminal on the back and at the top it has two terminals just like the one in the above alternator. The terminals had a black rubber cap covering them when it arrived which I removed. You can do a 360 view at summits sight to see what Im talking about. It does have a built in regulator.

I do have the idiot light, never put in a proper gauge.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/TFF-7068/?rtype=10

ok 1 wire - only thing ill say is just need a Hot wire to the 1 terminal on back - as for the idiot lite -?? im thinking ull need to add a real gague either amps or voltage & hook that hot wire thru the gague before goint to the alt .l Also make sure that hot wire is a 10 gague & is a switched wire - not hot all the time!!

Donivan65 I performed the test light test on the battery and it is coming on both when the van is running and off. While running the battery gave me a reading of 13.8 volts.

I tested the alternator today also. This is what I found.

ALT TEST #1) If I have a hot wire going to terminal 1 the alt produces 14.5 currents. This is only after the van has been started with the hot attached, I then unhooked the hot and took the reading from terminal #1 14.5 volts. Which tells me it charges.

ALT TEST#2) I shut down the van removed the hot wire from the alt so all thats hooked up to it is the battery. I started the van and took a reading from terminal one of the alt and got 0 volts on the voltmeter. I took the positive battery off and the van died. Tells me in this configuration the battery is powering everything.

Problem is if I leave it in Test #1s configuration after shutting the van down and removing the key the idiot light stays on, the only way to turn it of is by removing the positive battery cable or taking the hot off the alt terminal #1 and touching it to metal. After doing either the light goes off.

Side Note: someone else had posted a question having the same problems, sorry didnt mean to delete your post. Dont even know how i did it.

Find out what the idiot light is hooked to?????? let it glow -until you find whats powering it-likely thats your battery draw .just disconect that idiot light for now. Go back to my posts & read -do that again as far as testing.Every one here is correct in their thinking -yet may be confusing to you sometimes.

Forgive me ignorance when it comes to this, im working on it. Frustrating that none of these problems started until I put on the alternator. I am determined to get to the bottom of it.

I took some pics of the wiring to show what I've been looking at. One thing I noticed is the battery supply wire going to the generator now the alternator is coming from the voltage regulator. This is how it was wired when I bought the van and has been since. I actually have not changed any of the wiring so whats there has been there in the configuration it was in.

Voltage Regulator has a thick yellow wire going from it to the battery port of the alternator, same wire that was hooked up to the gen battery port. You can see it in the pic going from the volt reg to the alt

See in pic

I have figured this out. The alt is not getting a charge unless a hot wire is going to terminal 1.

bear with me here.... it sounds like the alternator... it's usually what has been touched or improved lately... with the alternator alone there are a few extremely common things that can cause the problem...
1. Is the alternator powder coated or have some other insulating material that may cause it to not ground.
2. New paint/coating on the brackets ( Did you pretty it up when replacing ) and or allow it to not pass ground ?
3. wrong alternator, stock may not be enough on alot of older vehicles.
4. some alternators ground to the bracket and may or may not have a ground wire and it is considered optional if you need it and sometimes doesn't come with the wire and often is not in the wiring harness.

I would jump the solenoid installed, i often just arch with a larger screwdriver, they do sell a trigger switch with alligators at sears for $8 i think,i have one, it's good to have around for convenience when working... .

if your good with the ohmmeter, and it may come to this anyway... check ground on pretty much everything touched lately... check voltage on alternator while running for output with everything on...

the reason i am very confident it is an alternator issue is you mentioned a light fading out ??? it shouldn't... it should go to ground...

You leave the black cap there its been converted internally ,, mine is the same way.

you have a voltage regulator, does your alternator also have one ? um, still have the directions ? a picture of the wiring diagram or diagrams would allow us to trace the wires and take out all doubt

Really that voltage regulator needs to disappear. your alt hot out should now be going to a bat power connection like on the hot side of the starter solenoid with maybe an 8 or 10 guage wire. If the alt is not putting out anything after you kick the RPMs upa bit then its junk.

Just recently been having the same problem on my 69 gmc van. I have had it for almost 2 years and have been running a 1 wire alternator on it. I had no charging problems up until about a couple of weeks ago. Then it started only occasionally charging and finally quit charging at all. It is wired up with a hot wire going from the back of the alternator to the positive post on the battery. I hooked up a wire from the #1 on top of the alternator and ran it to the positive post on the battery and it is now charging. I couldn't tell if I have a drain yet but will know later on this evening when I try to crank it.

I got to thinking and I had to replace my 1st 1 wire alt. it was bad out of the box. Im running these things on everything from old farm tractors to dump trucks with no issues, but it may be luck of the draw, the components are made who knows where. I just did a quick search and came up with a source for the kits here.
http://www.alternatorkit.com/one_wire_kit.html
Jegs also has some listed. In no way am I saying 1 wires are better,, they just eliminate some wiring and sore spots.

Just checked my battery and it was dead. Leaving the wire plugged into the alt going to the battery killed it dead. My van came from the factory with a generator and some one changed it over to a one wire alternator before I got it. I never had any problems with it until a week or so ago so I guess that the internal regulator has went bad. I guess I will have to breakdown and buy a rebuild kit or a new alternator.

Thanks for the help I will try that next before I go buy a new alternator.