WTF was Ford thinking... *UPDATE* More crappy wiring...

[rival]

ooo, platnium coated fuse holder, whats that, +10hp i think?

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: rival
ooo, platnium coated fuse holder, whats that, +10hp i think?

You're like an hour late d00d.

 

[Vette73]

Actually that is a problem with fords. In fact most rebuilt/re-man Alts come with new wiring harness as they are known to melt the factory ones when the Alts dies.
I have seen it quite a bit on customers cars.

 

[Insane3D]

Yeah, I had read that the stock spade connector was a fire waiting to happen.

 

[bsr]

that cable is not really to small... I bet that alternator pushing it's maximum output (charging a completly dead battery) probably wouldn't even make that cable get warm.

and also, on most cars they DONT want you to upgrade anything, take the audio system for example, they use the crappiest cables, speakers, head unit, etc they can get....

 

[cavemanmoron]

quit your whining,the 2 10 quage wires are prob acting as a cheap fusible link.

Also my car came with a 35 amp Alternator.

{it also has at the moment,a stock AM only radio. }

LOL

 

[Insane3D]

Well, I'm calling it a day. I'll finish up tomorrow. Once I get everything installed, I'll shoot some pics.

After all this, I get to move on to my A/C system removal. :Q Then my new EBC dimpled and slotted rotors and "Green Stuff" pads up up next...

 

[jsbush]

My lights dim a lot with my stock alternator, and an upgraded battery in my civic when I turn up the volume. I'm running an 800watt amp with one 12" sub.

I upgraded all the under the hood wiring to 4gauge wire (alternator wire, battery wires, even the starter wire lol.) and it didn't help much.

I wanted to ugrade everything to 0 or 1 gauge, but was to expensive and a little bit of an over kill.


There was 8gauge wire in there before. Our Ford Escort has 10gauge wire running everywhere I think. Its smaller then what I had in my civic anyways.


Good luck on the install

 

[Insane3D]

Well, it's a new day, so I'm going to have a sammich and start on my project again...

I thought I would update this thread with a couple comparison pics of the new 3rd Generation (3G) alternator, and the 12 year old 2G unit...

Front

Back

 

[IHYLN]

I know this might generate flames from the ricers but is there a point to having a 600 or 800w system in a car for normal purposes? Or is this for shows

 

[911paramedic]

Are you sure that's stock? Looks like a crappy aftermarket repair job.

 

[rh71]

you shoulda used Thompson's Water Seal.









Oh you meant the item in the foreground...

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: IHYLN
I know this might generate flames from the ricers but is there a point to having a 600 or 800w system in a car for normal purposes? Or is this for shows

It's not for a stereo system...I don't have a 600 or 800 watt system in my car.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: 911paramedic
Are you sure that's stock? Looks like a crappy aftermarket repair job.

Yep...100% stock factory wiring....but they handled the wire bundles in Mexico. I know this because the wire loom had stickers all over it..."Assembled in Mexico".

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: rh71
you shoulda used Thompson's Water Seal.









Oh you meant the item in the foreground...

The deck is not handled by me, it's handled by the condo association. Once every couple years they come by and power spray, then come by a week later and spray on some cheesy sealer. It looks particularly bad now because they power sprayed it last week.

Hey, at least it is no longer green.

 

[Insane3D]

Well, here's the other end of that crappy wiring. The yellow wire you can just see a piece of is a signal wire for the voltage regulator. It meets a fuseable link, then changes to a brown wire. The brown wire is spliced to the 8Ga orange/black power lead, which is then spliced to a green wire that terminates in a ring terminal for connection to the starter solenoid.

Niiiiiiiiice

Just called up PA Performance, and they said Ford is the only manufacturer they have ever seen fuse the signal line from the regulator. My guess is it's because it was spliced to the power lead and not a independant lead. Anywho, they said all it really needed was to be connected to a constant 12V, so they suggested I just put a ring terminal on it and connect it to the main power lead on the rear of the new alternator.

Problem solved!