Wow, what an excellent post that shouldnt be too hard to do at all.... But i want an alternator from a taurus not a truck??

 

yup cuae it is easier to find lots of taurus in the junk yards

 

Well its in and charging, and no fires even haha. I noticed the alternator did get pretty warm, almost hot i would say on the first drive, i attributed this to the low batteries, running lights heater and wipers, not to mention a decent stereo.

As far as the yellow wire goes, i managed to lose it in the process of tearin out old alt, regulator and burnt wires so i put a ring on it and went to the battery side of the starter solenoid. I hope thats right. According to the Alt. diagram in this thread, it should be, and if memory serves, the same wire was soldiered in the charging wire on the alternator side of the fusible link. Something i may change in the future, so if the fusible link burns out that wire is no longer sending juice to the regulator.

 

that was an awsome post...now im gunna have to start scouting the boneyards around here

 

going to attempt this MOD tomorrow. I had the harness off a crown vic. and I just bought the alternator no junkyard had one, I needed a new alternator because mines was bad. so the oem was $90 and the 3g was $160 so I just went ahead with the 3g for piece of mind since i had the harness. Now you said i just connect the yellow and green wire and that's it? Of course i know the batt terminal.

My batt light stayed on all the time charging or not. Will this light finally go out with this swap?
And what should i connect to keep my inside gauge working?
Pulley? just swap the pulley and leave off the fan blade on the old alternator and grind a lil off for good clearance right? please let me know, going to try this tomorrow

 

No idea on the batt. light, i know this swap will render the gauge useless. Pulley just swaps over, its a close fit but i didnt have to grind. Also, from what i seen, all 3.8s use the same alternator, seen a couple 90s aerostars with the same alt. and something else too. Seems like the 3.0 uses the same alt as well, no idea if its the same one though other than just looks.

 

You starting off with a 1G alt and going to 3G? In my truck I removed EVERYTHING that was hooked up to the alternator and voltage regulator, even cut the VR connector off the main harness (turns out the only wire that leaves the VR and goes into the main body harness is actually just the green one). I ran a new heavy-gauge charging cable, extended the factory green wire from the main body harness to the 3G's 3-wire connector, and then looped the yellow wire to the alternator's charging stud via a ring terminal. This really makes the thing a simple 2-wire install, where one is the green trigger wire and the other is the fat charging cable.

Light should be off, it's part of the green wire circuit and with a 3G it is only lit while you wait on the glowplugs and also if the alternator goes bad internally (something grounds to something IIRC, forgot the details tho as I never had any problems with it).
On the gauge, if you have a voltmeter from the factory it will continue to operate just fine on its own, no work required there on your part. If it's an amp-meter, then I dunno, never had to mess with one of those. It's an '87 truck tho, so it should be a voltmeter on the dash.
Pulley - don't recall having to grind anything on mine with the V-belts. I have done some trimming on several occasions, but those were all 3G alternators receiving the small 1-7/8" 2G serpentine-belt pulleys for better power output at idle. Your '87 should have V-belts, so likely no grinding will be needed. And yes, leave the external fan blade off, it is not required on a 3G alternator as it already has an internal cooling fan,actually two of them.

 

Not sure on the Aerostars, but many Windstars have the proper large-case-large-frame alternator as well. The 3.0 V6 Taurii and Sables use a large-case small-frame alternator, it's got the same guts as the 3.8 unit but the mounting tabs have the holes closer together, 7" vs. 8-1/4" for the large-frame 3G alt. My own alternator has a 3.8 front case with a 3.0 stator and rotor and hell if I remember what kind of rear case and VR... lol