Alternator help…

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dirtautoguy

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I was not able to find a oem used one at either salvage yards I went to, so I ordered a acdelco gold ad244 and a slightly longer belt. They should be here at the end of the week. I’ll try to post when I get er done or why it doesn’t work
 

dirtautoguy

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I got my new alternator and got it put in. It does fit with some very minor adjustment of the heater line. The old belt did fit but it put the tensioner almost maxed out and I didn’t like it. Luckily I ordered a new belt for the same truck except with a 140 amp alternator.

It fits much better but still not quite where the tensioner was before. I think it’s acceptable though.

Later I may add a “sense” wire but for now there are some other bugs to work out. When I first started the truck it held 14.0-14.1 no matter what lights, fans, heater. I went for a test drive and it stayed that way for a while. I tried to include all kinds of driving hoping I could be confident to take it to work 5am in the morning. I drove it probably 15 miles some town, some highway, some dirt, road slow driving. And slowly the performance went down hill untill the end of my drive idling I was seeing 13.4 and all of my lights were surging. I also noticed my volt gauge was bouncing randomly with the surging.

So it would appear I have a issue worse than what I started with. I’m leaning towards condemning the new alternator but tomorrow I’m going to check all connections and make sure they are clean and tight.

Any thoughts one other things to check? I don’t have confidence that it will get me to work at 5 am without issue. Atleast my other truck has heated seats
 

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HotWheelsBurban

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I got my new alternator and got it put in. It does fit with some very minor adjustment of the heater line. The old belt did fit but it put the tensioner almost maxed out and I didn’t like it. Luckily I ordered a new belt for the same truck except with a 140 amp alternator.

It fits much better but still not quite where the tensioner was before. I think it’s acceptable though.

Later I may add a “sense” wire but for now there are some other bugs to work out. When I first started the truck it held 14.0-14.1 no matter what lights, fans, heater. I went for a test drive and it stayed that way for a while. I tried to include all kinds of driving hoping I could be confident to take it to work 5am in the morning. I drove it probably 15 miles some town, some highway, some dirt, road slow driving. And slowly the performance went down hill untill the end of my drive idling I was seeing 13.4 and all of my lights were surging. I also noticed my volt gauge was bouncing randomly with the surging.

So it would appear I have a issue worse than what I started with. I’m leaning towards condemning the new alternator but tomorrow I’m going to check all connections and make sure they are clean and tight.

Any thoughts one other things to check? I don’t have confidence that it will get me to work at 5 am without issue. Atleast my other truck has heated seats
Well, good luck, and let us know what fixes the problem. Can you get a better picture showing how you modified or moved the heater line? This may be something I do to my Burb down the line. Once the AC and heater are functional, be using a little more juice, so needing to keep it charged up.
 

dirtautoguy

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I checked almost everything out. I forgot to mention that the old alternator had a 3rd mount on the back where the ad244 does not.

I thought maybe it was not grounding good enough any more so I attached a wire from the case to the negative on the battery with no change

I made sure all connections were tight

I used some alligator clips to run a sense wire to the battery with no luck either.

I checked that the plug was connected tightly

The only thing I did not get to is the positive battery cable. I was going to just check that it was clean but I ran out of time. I really don’t think it would make much difference the other connections look good and the old alternator did better.

My local napa has a new alternator I can get for $219 on sale with no core. I’m $108 into this one and I’m pretty positive it’s a faulty unit and I’ll return it. So it’s only $111 different

On the heater hose what I did was loosen the mounting bolt and then slip a pry bar between the alt and hose and gently pry it over untill it just barely cleared. I was pretty carefully because I don’t thing that hose is real strong. A combination of slight bending and pivoting the hose on its mount got me the clearance I needed.
 

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HotWheelsBurban

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I checked almost everything out. I forgot to mention that the old alternator had a 3rd mount on the back where the ad244 does not.

I thought maybe it was not grounding good enough any more so I attached a wire from the case to the negative on the battery with no change

I made sure all connections were tight

I used some alligator clips to run a sense wire to the battery with no luck either.

I checked that the plug was connected tightly

The only thing I did not get to is the positive battery cable. I was going to just check that it was clean but I ran out of time. I really don’t think it would make much difference the other connections look good and the old alternator did better.

My local napa has a new alternator I can get for $219 on sale with no core. I’m $108 into this one and I’m pretty positive it’s a faulty unit and I’ll return it. So it’s only $111 different

On the heater hose what I did was loosen the mounting bolt and then slip a pry bar between the alt and hose and gently pry it over untill it just barely cleared. I was pretty carefully because I don’t thing that hose is real strong. A combination of slight bending and pivoting the hose on its mount got me the clearance I needed.
Good to know, thanks very much!
 

thegawd

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I have recently learned about alternators while wiring up one for my tractor. that "sense wire" needs a load on it like an indicator light. your battery light on the dash is the indicator light on our trucks. it illuminates when the key is in the run position but not having the engine on. this will lite up and when the alternator starts spinning with the motor is when the sense wire turns the alternator on.

that's all I know about this subject. LMAO.

otherwise I dont know if the sense wire will actually work when its just connected to the battery like that or what would happen if it does.

I think when the engine is just idling the alternator is probably not charging at all. and when the engine rpm is much higher is when the alternator defaults to charging with no sense at all.

so from what I understand is that without the sense wire the alternator will only charge at high rpms.
 

dirtautoguy

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Ok I got the new new alternator on from napa. And I have solid voltage!

I really wish my acdelco one had been good but obviously it was not. The new one starts at 14.5 cold and stays around 13.8 warm. If I turn all my electronics on including the fans on high (which very rarely happens) it holds about 13.4 at idle.

I don’t have the lights surging, the belt noise, nor the volt variation. I do think it would benefit from a sense wire previously mentioned so I’ll work on getting that done next.


But for the mean time I’m happy. Plus now if I have issues with this alternator the napa is about a mile down the road.

I did notice in comparison that the acdelco one had some fairly rough looking parts inside it where the napa one that is not a reman has much shinier parts and included actual test results at different rpm’s where the acdelco did not come with.
 

Schurkey

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I'm reading this as "-4" = 14, "-2" = 12, "-0" =10. Anyone understand differently?

And, of course, this is all for COPPER conductors, not the dogshiit "Copper-Clad Aluminum" that they're trying to cheat us with now.
 

AuroraGirl

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I'm reading this as "-4" = 14, "-2" = 12, "-0" =10. Anyone understand differently?

And, of course, this is all for COPPER conductors, not the dogshiit "Copper-Clad Aluminum" that they're trying to cheat us with now.
God know im not a dodge owner

also those values were made with a log formula i bet, and they werent converted or something idk
 
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