01 f350 cclb 4x4 auto.

Battery light has been on for a week, but truck has been running fine. Last night was the first time I have driven with the light on at night using my headlights. Halfway home, my radion started to loose volume, power. then my guages lost power, fuel temp etc. I tried turning my headlights off, I then regained my guages, but not radio. I turned my ac off and regained the radio. Got home as the truck started to act like it wanted to die. shut everything off in driveway, and she ideled fine. turned it off and tried to restart, dead. I thinking alternator. I tood it out last night to have it tested today. What to you think?



Thanks,

Tom

 

Sounds like the problem. The increased amp capacity of two batteries, in parallel, will allow you to go longer, without an alternator, before the lack of charging is noticed.

 

Don't know how soon you need your truck back up and running but Brown is supposed to deliver the 6G alternator I ordered next thursday. I talked with the guy that is putting them together and it sounds like it should be the ticket, I ordered a 140A alt, they also had 160 and 200. The 6G is in a larger Casing which allows for more windings than the 3G that comes stock in our trucks. Hopefully I can report back with complete amazement, but then again, it is just an alternator...

 

I've been adding jumper wires to all my alternators for years. It off-loads the charging from the vehicle's wiring harness and gives the internal voltage regulator a more accurate reading of how much charge to give. I've done it with customer's cars who were having dead battery issues and it cures it once and for all. (As long as the alternator is not worn out or something.) The red wire goes to the output post and the black wire is simply a ground bolted to the body of the alternator

 

kwik...i always wanted to try this ive done this to some of my older cars but i didnt know that it worked with the double battery set up...

 

Not to take awy from your idea....it seems so simple, and yet never crossed my mind, what a great idea Kwik.

 

No reason why it shouldn't, they are simply hooked up in parallel, making a virtual very large single battery. Doesn't matter how many with this sort of setup.
I said this in another thread a while back, but it bears repeating.
Where I live in rain capitol of the world: Seattle, WA the streets are rather small and very overcrowded even on a sunny summer day. I-5 southbound into town is blocked up all day long and during rush hour it's stop and go. During the wintertime it's generally 40-50 degrees and wet. That translates into very low rpm, engine idling half the time with the rear defrost, climate control, headlights, and sometimes the stereo all turned on. If your charging system is not in like new condition it will drain your battery down to nothing.
I've had a lot of customer's cars towed in with a dead battery and nothing really wrong with the system other than a little voltage drop between the alternator and the battery. All it would take is 1/2volt and the battery would end up very low or dead the next morning. Installing the bridge cured all the charging issues.
Another thing that I like doing is to run the headlights directly off of the alternator and use the headlight wiring itself to control relays that power the headlights. It makes them extremely bright because now they are getting fed an unlimited supply of 14.5volts. They tend to burn out pretty quickly but the tradeoff at nighttime is well worth the effort to build that circuit. I use 8 guage wire to feed the relays and 12 guage wire for each headlight circuit. It makes a 55 watt halogen bulb look like a 100.

 

Dan, I'm not sure I fully understand your wiring. The truck's factory wiring goes from Alt. thru fusible links to battery. Are you hooking the Alt output straight to the pos pole of Battery with no overcurrent protection? And, I assume the ground on alt bracket to neg pole of battery? I have never seen or heard of this, but your experience with it seems to be positive.

 

The fusible link is to prevent the wiring harness from frying (well, the "link" does anyway) when a diode shorts in the alternator's diode pack and current then FREELY flows FROM the battery, through the shorted diode, to ground. Lotsa' current. Short to ground. Smoke. Old Chrysler products were famous for smoked harnesses.

In Kwik's case, if a diode shorts to ground, the diode should just melt first, or at least some internal wire in the alternator will melt open. But, at that point, the alternator was already toast.

Sure protects your wiring harness!! ;-)))

But, more importantly, you also have a precise battery voltage value for the regulator to work on.

Pop

 

More info on this 6 g Alternator please?

 

I just recently had to replace the wifes alternator, and hers suffered from VERY similar symptoms, then me being a dummy, and in a hurry forgot to plug in the plug all the way, and it wound up working its way back out but I finally got it all fixed and back on the road, now all it looks like I need to do is go for the wiring setup that KWIK has going

 

I've been working on VW and Audi for nearly 30 years now and they NEVER use a fuseable link for the alternator. They just run a wire to the starter post.
When I found out that Ford does use a fuseable link, I was surprised to learn that information.

 

did some researching, and found this out...

http://www.alternatorparts.com/Ford_...oke_Diesel.htm

which one would be best for supporting electrical fans?

 

Odd.. according to Strokin link in the post above.. the 6G in the smaller one..
Does anyone have the actual physical differences between the 3G and 6G? When in 99 did Ford change to a smaller case?

 

I believe this is the same Alternator Just. alittle cheaper.Country http://www.db-starter-alternator.com/Items/7798-11-200%20amp?