why did this happen?

[dugee81]

i pulled out my alternator today and replaced it with the stock one. here is what i found.

the right side is the half connected to the battery, the left side is what was connected to the alt. these are 4awg, with 100amp fusing in between both

this is the OEM wire connecting to the alternator. my question is: is this wire still usable? looks burnt.

and what happened here? did my alternator have a short or something??? im not quite sure. all connections were secure and i wasnt abusing my alternator as far as my knowledge goes.

[speedball1978]

i pulled out my alternator today and replaced it with the stock one. here is what i found.

the right side is the half connected to the battery, the left side is what was connected to the alt. these are 4awg, with 100amp fusing in between both

this is the OEM wire connecting to the alternator. my question is: is this wire still usable? looks burnt.

and what happened here? did my alternator have a short or something??? im not quite sure. all connections were secure and i wasnt abusing my alternator as far as my knowledge goes.

ok first all, you need to fuse a 4 ga wire to 150 amps not 100, did you ground the alt also?? the reason i say 150 is that you didn't feed the alt enough juice from the battery, you limited the current so the alt was hungry and pulling for power so it burned up the cord excessive overheating for not getting enough juice. Check out the wires max fusing on the web, even 200 is ok, if you go 0 ga then you wanna fuse it with a 300

[white4d96]

Umm...alts don't pull juice from the battery, it's the other way around.

Were your cables running by something hot on the engine? Exhaust or something?

[dyeagain15]

ok first all, you need to fuse a 4 ga wire to 150 amps not 100, did you ground the alt also?? the reason i say 150 is that you didn't feed the alt enough juice from the battery, you limited the current so the alt was hungry and pulling for power so it burned up the cord excessive overheating for not getting enough juice. Check out the wires max fusing on the web, even 200 is ok, if you go 0 ga then you wanna fuse it with a 300

FAIL, and if the fuse didnt blow then 100A fuse will be ok.

:edit: check the wire, if the wire was "burned up" the coating would be melted on it too, which shows to small of wire. Which in that case, heat causes an increase in resistance, which would have made the fuse blow. Simple electrical knowledge there

[IH8PunkRok]

wow @ speedball

as for the OP. there had to be some kind of short somewhere. 100 amp would have blown if the power was traveling through it. which makes me believe that something else started the arcing process

[tristan560]

@speedball....seriously? Need to ground the alt? You mean like bolt it to the block? .......

[2000LaDe]

@speedball....seriously? Need to ground the alt? You mean like bolt it to the block? .......

u turd the alt is already grounded by the case being bolted to the engine lol

[dugee81]

the fuses are fully intact. i figured keeping the stock wire and the 2 runs of 4awg would suffice for a 200 amp alternator. i had the big 3 done. everything was tight and secure. the wires going from alt to battery were close to the engine, but certainly not laying on it by any means. so is this problem a fault of mine? I've had this alternator for about 2 months now with no problems.

edit: and yes i had a wire going from a bolt located on the engine, there was already a OEM ground wire there so i figured it would be okay.

[tristan560]

u turd the alt is already grounded by the case being bolted to the engine lol

Haha I know....that's what I was sayin.