Quote:
Will i damage or cook any electronics continuing to use this alternator?
Yes, you stand to have an electrical fire—a fast one or a slow one—unless you upgrade the charging system wiring. Yes, upgrading the charging system wiring is a bit of a nuisance, but it's worth doing even if you keep a lower-output alternator. Fact is, the charging circuit on an old Mopar is marginally adequate except on cars factory-equipped with the 60-amp or bigger alternator starting in '73; those got a much heavier-duty charging circuit. But most of our cars didn't get that.
You can do it quickly and cheaply by running two 10ga wires with ring terminals at each end directly from the alternator's output terminal to the battery + terminal. Each of these 10ga wires must have
two 50A fuses, one located within inches of the alternator output terminal and the other located within inches of the battery + terminal.
Put the wires in sleeve/loom and route them where they're not likely to be snagged or cut. Across the top of the radiator support panel with anchored zip ties works well, or tucked under the lip at the top of the rad support. Once you've installed these wires your ammeter will no longer read correctly but you won't be running high current back and forth via thin wires through the firewall and low-rated ammeter, which is where the melt/burn/fire danger comes from.
Why a fuse at each end of each wire? Because that's a long run of (very) high-current cable we're running from the alternator to the battery, no matter what route we take with it. If we put a fuse only at the battery end, that's fine if a short circuit occurs somewhere downstream of the battery. If we put a fuse only at the alternator end, that's fine if a short circuit occurs somewhere downstream of the alternator. But if we want to protect against the prospect of big, destructive, costly fireworks no matter where a short circuit might occur in that line (say...like...in the middle of the line, halfway between the alternator and the battery) we put fuses at both ends.
This bypass will render your ammeter inoperative. If you want to keep the stock ammeter but without running full-car current back and forth through the firewall and the ammeter, you can adapt an external shunt—see
here and
here for example—like the factory did starting in '71 on the bigger cars, and on the A-bodies for their last model year of '76.
And
here's a collection of good ideas to beef up the ammeter and its connections to eliminate weaknesses.
If you want to do an ammeter-to-voltmeter conversion,
Redline Gaugeworks and
Williamsons can both do a stealth conversion of stock ammeter to voltmeter for "it must've come that way from the factory" appearance as seen in the '62 Plymouth shown
here (look closely at the instrument panel; the Alternator gauge now has a scale from 8 to 18 volts rather than the original D at the left and C at the right—and the oil pressure gauge is another never-offered-by-Chrysler item done by one of the gauge specialty houses).
For less money (but more work) you can buy a Sunpro voltmeter, tear it apart, and mount the old ammeter face over it with good, clean results as show-and-told
here.
(sooner or later someone might mention an outfit called MAD Electrical. Steer clear; their methods are half-baked at best, ranging all the way to technically/factually wrong.)
_________________
一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.
Register
Login
FAQ
Search
