Have any of you guys converted to the one wire ford alternators ( regulator in internal I assume) on the 79 trucks? I have seen these in some of the catalogs, Summit, Jeg's. I haven't found any instructions as to how the wiring is done and was wondering if it would be a chore to change over? How do you handle the ext. regulator, battery connection and etc?

 

That's their selling point; "one wire". That's all you need. They have a few drawbacks, but work well enough. First, they have to do some hocus pocus in the regulator to make it "come online". Your factory setup has a wire(nobody like wires right?) from the ignition switch to do this. What this means is sometimes the one wire will not start charging unless you rev the engine.

Second, the regulator has to monitor the truck's elec system to see what the voltage level is. This info is given to the regulator, which controls the output of the alternator. On a factory system, this is another wire(one of those pesky wires again) that is hooked at a remote location near the battery(the large terminal on the starter relay actually). On the one wire, the regulator has to take the sample voltage inside the alternator itself. This also works ok, as long as you use a very large wire going to the one wire. If your wire is too small, then the alternator doesn't "see" the load downstream because of the too small wire isolates it too much.

The old regulator wires can be taken out if you get one. The only wire you will have left is the red/green coming from the ignition switch, and it can be taped off.

 

Franklin2, by your feedback and thank you, it sounds like its not a sure thing nor a upgrade of sorts but just a short cut to clean up a couple of wires. Maybe I will stay as is, was looking to clean up the compartment for show quality. Thanks, Tom

 

It does clean up the engine compartment. The one wire alt plus a one wire HEI type Ford dist really cleans it up.

 

If you decide to go 1-wire, a company called Tuff Stuff has a chrome one for Fords for about 120 bux (100 amp). It is the best deal Ive found. Ive done a little bit of research on this myself. The guys on here tend to be purists and want to keep it stock. Nothing wrong with that, but you sound more like me. From what Ive been able to find online it seems like you give your regulator a fling and just run a wir from your alt. to the pos. batt. terminal. The sites all seemed to agree that you will need to use a 4GA wire to handle the upgrade in power. I havent done this upgrade yet cause I cant talk my wife into 120 bux to replace an alt. when my current alt. is working. I am currently trying to find a way to sabbatage mine. Ha Ha. I hope this info helps you out.

 

It's not so much being a purist, is the fact of functionality. The multiple wire OEM setups just work better. To this day, all OEM's still use a multi-wire setup.

The one wire is fine for cleaning up the engine compartment, and for simplicity. But for these features the operation is compromised a little bit, and it will not work as well as a OEM setup in certain situations.

 

so does anyone know of a higher amperage alternator that isnt 1 wire? like say 140amp or so

 

Put in "3g conversion" in a search on this site or a web search engine. It's a very common Ford alternator that has a 130amp output. The trick is finding one that fits without too much bracket modification. They are very common on the Taurus and other Ford/Mercury vehicles, especially front wheel drive with electric fans.