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I am working on rewiring my 1978 F250 with a harness from American Autowire. The new harness requires a one wire alternator. So I bought one from summit racing and got it installed several months ago now. Today I was getting back to work on it trying to button up the wiring and was just testing connections with a multimeter. I found out that I had a short somewhere, and discovered that it was the new alternator. So I took it out and the short is gone. The problem seems to be that the new one wire alternator is shorted to itself... I have continuity between the battery stud and the alternator body. And I have to believe that this is not correct, but before I call up summit and see if I can get an exchange or refund, I was wondering if someone here with more knowledge than me can confirm that this is incorrect? Or is there something else that I am doing wrong?
I took the alternator apart and was testing components, and in doing so I learned what a bridge rectifier is, and now understand that the alternator is most likely fine and behaving as it should. I feel like my ignorance just caused me to waste hours of my day. At least I learned something!
But I still have a question about it...
With the battery removed from the truck (and the alternator re-installed) if I test across the battery cables, it looks like I have a short, but only in one direction. The question: how will this not drain the battery?
The one wire alternator (all of them I beleive) has hot on the stud full time. the one wire is switch hot and enables it to charge. One wire alternators sometimes wont charge at low speed and may need a blip of the gas to initiate the charging.
if you have a short, it will measure the same resistance regardless of the meter polarity. A bridge rectifier is made up of diodes...diodes pass current in only one direction... :-)
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