One wire alternator

[Meat Drapes]

I have everything set for my new motor. I bought a new alternator and want to know what to do with the old wiring? Clip it? Seems like an awful lot of wires that have no place to go now. There was a bunch that ran to the AC/Heater box and the three that ran to the old alternator. Can a
'one wire' and the loss of the box delete that much wiring? I dont want to remove anything yet untill I hear from experience.

 

[78_Elky]

I know a lot of guys may disagree, but since I street drive my car EVERY DAY I kept the old wiring and run a one wire alternator but keep the other wires and plugs tucked back near the valve cover, because if the alternator ever goes bad I wanted to be able to get one fast and not have to searxh all over for a one wire one in a pinch. There are a lot of wires that could be removed. As for the heatqer if you re not using a heater then you can get rid of them, I mean its not the worst thing, they are really easy to remove without cutting them so if you ever want to go back you can. Like I said I have a daily driver so I try to keep things as close to universal as I can haha
-Josh

 

[cleetus]

With the one wire setup, they only thing you use is the back hookup and the red wire? What about my voltmeter, where can I hook that now? I assume it was run off the other two wires, right?

I'm converting from the 3 wire to a 1 wire (just cause that fits the serp setup and my 3 wire doesn't.) Just want to make sure I don't burn up the electrical system.

 

[Doober]

If it's how I'm thinking, you need to connect the battery cable to the post on the back like normal, and hook a ignition-switched 12v source to the connector on the top. What voltmeter are you talking about? If it's the factory round gauges you don't have to do anything, it just gets power from the ignition source for the rest of the gauges.

 

[82elcamino]

on a 3 wire, you have one big wire that goes to battery, one that goes to fuse block for signal. andone that goes to the battery light. dummy light whatever. . to convert. get rid of all but one big wire going to battery. i love my 1 wire

 

[cleetus]

I'm getting 10 different stories about these things.

I was told to run the red to the starter, where it would piggy back off the old red wire. Others say run it right to the battery, which is essentially the same thing.

I went to a shop and asked if they could turn it into a 3 wire setup. The guy hacked a harness that plugs into the alternator and soldered on a red and brown wire (like the stock setup) to 2 of the 4 terminals. I had to of course cut off the old plug and connect the new plug to the old wires. He said this would serve the same purpose, and would charge at idle. He did nothing to the alternator itself.

What do you think?

 

[MadMike]

I am doing the same thing. Going to 1 wire and don't have ac or heater. Bunch of nasty wires to get rid of. So the factory wires that go to the alternator (none are used)? Just run a wire from battery to alternator?

 

[78maliburat]

napa sells a 1 wire alt cheap 40 something

 

[Robert1320]

Make sure you have a volt gauge, depending on pulley speeds you may not have any charging untill you get the alt spinning. It may take 3-4k engine rpm before the alt will excite and charge.

 

[59RAT]

There's two larger red wires coming out of the fuse box in the motor compartment. One of those goes to the starter for the feed to the fuse box, the other goes to the bolted lug on the back of the alt. There is a brown wire also in this harness. The brown (switched) wire goes to the top pulg in to the alt. this wire is what make the alt. charge. Rod