Ford charging system problems

Ok, I've tried search but am turning up nothing. The details: 58 ford with a 302. GM style HEI distributor, New battery, new alternator (78 ford truck), new battery cables, new solenoid on fender well. Alternator wiring harness is from a 79 f150 with a v8. Not charging. tomorrow I am replacing the voltage regulator (I used the one from the 78 truck), anybody think of anything else to check? I would like an idea of other stuff to check when I go to the garage tomorrow. Thanks all!


-LUKEY-

 

Grounds!! Is engine grounded to chassis or battery. It must be, if it starts and runs, but you can not overstress the importance of grounds. It is HALF of the circuit.
Ford is good about color-coding charging system wires, but make sure alt. trigger wire is getting power when key is on.

 

Take both parts to Mr. Auto Electric over in Springfield have them run a bench test,you could have the alternator converted to a one wire so it only connects to battery positive.

 

Grounds, forgot to mention those, engine is grounded to firewall. Battery neg cable to waterpump, and the small cable on the ground wire is grounded to fender well/rad support bolt.


-LUKEY-

 

These wiring systems have fusible links usually off starter solenoid battery side on fenderwell. Have you checked for bad fusible links?
There are "full fielder" tools out there that bypass regulator to see if alt will charge. All the tool does is go into reg connector and jump two wires. I can't remember which two...
Is there full battery voltage to heavy wire at alt at all times?

 

Let me ask a quick question.... did you connect to the original idiot light and it won't go out? If you did, you need to install a 15 ohm resistor in parallel with the light as the light alone doesn't show enough resistance to 'trigger' the regulator.

Learned that one the hard way....

 

Do you have POWER TO THE I TERMINAL

 

I had a 29 Roadster, running a small Ford V6 with a one wire Alt. and all was well. Then it would just up and quite charging. Then it would charge, then not charge. Took the alt. to the shop and he said it was OK. Re installed and it would work and then not. Battery was in the trunk, so I ran two No6 leads from the alt to the battery, one ground and one pos. Never had a problem again. Check the grounds. Iceman

 

Did not hook up idiot light. As for grounds, should I run a ground from the alt ground connection to the battery ground? Will check power to "I" terminal tomorrow, should it be hot with key on only?


-LUKEY-

 

I did not hear how the engine was grounded to chassis. Yes is the best answer to any "should I ground" question. Test with a ground jumper wire, if you want, but it's difficult to have too many grounds, unless you make it look like hell. Do a clean job on any wiring and you only have to do it once.
Battery, engine, chassis, body, components, all have to SHARE good clean grounds.

 

Come to think of it, it isn't grounded to the chassis itself. I will do that tomorrow also, I will ground the alternator ground to the battery ground also. So let me get this straight...engine grounded to firewall, battery grounded to engine, alternator grounded to battery, and add ground from engine to frame?


-LUKEY-

 

Make sure the paint is off.....bare metal..... under the ground contact points......this can be a big problem with grounds.

 

Yes key on it is the inergizer wire

 

Also on an ot car, I had connection problems on the alt connector.....wiggle the connector and it charged!!!

On a OT Ford Tempo, the main wire connection heated and burned.....my electrical shop said they replace the connector with a GM style stud and no more problem!!

 

Can somebody help me with a diagram of how to connect the 78 alt wiring and regulator in to the 58 wiring, to make sure I did that right? I'm pretty sure it's right, cause it charged for a month of driving, but stranger things have happened!


-LUKEY-

 

Here's one I drew up for my '74. Should be similar to the '78. It also has a capacitor between the yellow and ground, for radio noise suppression, that is not shown.

 

The field wire needs power to excite and start charging. Usually done through the idiot light circuit and parallel resistor as already mentioned.

 

GOT IT!!! Changed voltage regulator, still dead. Unwrapped all the wiring for the charging system and found the stator wire from the regulator to the alternator was broke. Also reran the exciter wire to the regulator...everything seems to work. Took an hour to fix the problem and 2 hours to rewrap/rerun all the wires to look decent. Thanks for the help everybody!


-LUKEY-

 

Thanks for the update Lukey