After learning the hard way how to hook up the new charge cable, I'm very happy tonight.

I snagged a reman alternator off of ebay and bought a new charge cable with 175amp inline fuse from RJM. Installing the alternator was no problem at all. What gave me trouble was finding a spot to mount the fuse holder and to run the charge cables. I will share some of my experiences to help others that may consider doing this in the future...

1. Measure the length you need. I just guessed and ended up with 8 inches of excess that I had to loop around some to take out the slack.
2. Find a good mounting spot for the fuse holder. I had a nice spot selected that was 6 inches away from the solenoid on the sidewall. Drilled a pilot hole and used 2 screws for the holder, started the truck and made sure it was charging and then shut the hood... or tried to. Turns out that the hood spring hit the top of the holder and made a nice arc. Now I know why RJM sends 2 fuses when you order a cable...
3. Decide what you want to do with the old charge cable. I found out on mine that the old charge cable has another cable (yellow in my case) that splices into it and then attaches to the solenoid. Without that hooked up to the solenoid the alternator will not charge. Subford, Frederic, or some of the others may need to correct my thinking, but I believe you can splice a new wire for the yellow wire and hook it up to the solenoid that way and be fine. I just hooked it up and put heatshrink tubing on the alternator end of the cable. This way it won't run a risk of arcing onto something else and if you have a problem with the new charge cable or need to use the older alternator for an emergency, it's already there and you just have to cut the heatshrink off.

Now my setup is a side-mount style. If you have an alternator that has 2 holes at 12 and 6, then things are a little different. For help with that, use this site http://www.fordfuelinjection.com/?p=75 .

After installing the 3G the only time my battery gauge twitches is when the headlights first come on, but other than that it never moves regardless of how much load is on it. It's a nice thing. I do have plans for an e-fan in the future, hence why I installed one tonight. For pictures to help, go here.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Renegade2314/Truck/AlternatorFiles001.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Renegade2314/Truck/AlternatorFiles003.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Renegade2314/Truck/AlternatorFiles004.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Renegade2314/Truck/AlternatorFiles005.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Renegade2314/Truck/AlternatorFiles006.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y71/Renegade2314/Truck/AlternatorFiles007.jpg

Hopefully this info will help people. If anybody has any further questions, ask them and I'll do my best to answer them.

 

Someone please PM the mods to get this thread added to out Tech sticky. Can't send PMs are I'd do it myself.

Very awesome writeup Moore, top notch

 

I will also add that a 13mm, 10mm and a pair of channel locks for my battery cable are your friends for this project.

And Skan, for my preference please call me Chrono.

 

Will do, but only if you explain the significance of the name Chrono

 

Where did you get that cool blue pulley?

 

Chrono is my nickname in real life. I just have a preference on it is all.

The blue pulley is part of an underdrive pulley set I have. The pulley that came with this alternator was deformed (it had been dropped by me accidentally) and I had this pulley sitting in the box with the others. The blue one is just a hair smaller than what I had on there now, so it's actually spinning faster for the moment.

 

Is that heavy expensive cable really necessary?

 

In my case I found out that instead of having a 95amp like I thought I had a 60amp. I'm pretty sure of this since the charge cable was only an 8 gauge. If it was a 95amp it would have been a smaller gauge. Since your pulling that much more amperage, I'd highly suggest getting the charge cable. Not to mention there's a fusible link in the original charge harness that would be very easy to blow with that much more amperage as well as be a pain to replace given where it's at.

I guess the bottom line is if you have a 95amp alternator, you might be able to get away with the old charge cable, but if it's a 60amp I wouldn't even try it. Just my personal opinion...

 

yea your'e probably right i didn't think of it that way.

 

I'm a little confused. I'm about 99% sure your 93 came with a 3G alternator, and looking at your pictures, it appears that you used the existing plug into the new alternator. Since the plug is much different for the 2G, you must have had a 3G alternator. So other than unnecessarily adding an over sized cable and a fuse holder, what did you change, and why?
Frank

 

(re-reads first post). Yeah, I worded that wrong and I apologize for that. What I replaced was a 3G already and did re-use the existing plug. I'm fairly certain that the old alternator was not a 95 amp. I say that because the charge cable seemed too small to me to be used on 95 amps. I may be wrong. I'm using the bigger charge cable for added insurance I guess.

My reasoning for putting the 130amp in is the old alternator was having problems charging at idle under load. Everything would dim and the battery gauge would drop down when I had the headlights on at night. I will also be doing an e-fan conversion in the future. Now I have looked all over the old alternator for any sort of amp rating and it is not given anywhere. If someone wants to enlighten me as to where to find it, I'll be happy to look.

 

Your truck came with either a 95, 135, or 200 amp 3G. Not absolutely positive, but don't think Ford ever made a 60 amp 3G. Can't go by wire size to determine rated ouput of the alternator. Going to a new alternator before you do the electric fan was a good idea. Might want to go back to the stock pulley. One of the advantages of the 3G over the 2G is the increased output at low engine speeds.
If you want to use the bad boy fan off a Lincolin Mark VIII, send me a PM. I got one for my truck, and discovered the 300 is too long. Not much room left for an Efan.
Good luck Frank

 

chrono, if you do the head light relay upgrade
you may eleminate the flutter you get when turning on the head lights
by pulling the load from the starter solenoid and
eleminating that load from going thru the dash circuit

 

I've never heard of doing that, but it would make more sense. How would that be done?