Alternator-wiring

[Jan van de Wouw <jvdwouw@xxxx>]

Hello everyone,

I just got home from messing with the wiring on a fellow
owners' car and doing so discovered something very weird
concerning the alternator...

As I understand the original Alternators only had/have
ONE wire for both sense and light. In the commonly available
wiring schematic there are TWO wires coming from the alternator,
a Brown one and one Brown w/ Yellow stripe.

However, on the wiring schematic I got for my donation to the
MJFox-foundation (courtesy of Bob Zilla) the Brown wire is NOT
present...

In real life I discovered that this wire IS on the car, but seems
to have been butchered AT THE FACTORY! I only had 3 cars to compare,
but I'm willing to bet this is common practice...

The wire with the Yellow stripe runs through the FireWall using
the White plug on the left side (nearest the front of the car)
under the coil/wiring cover. The BROWN wire comes out of the BLUE
plug and is brown on the engine-side, while it's WHITE inside the
pontoon. This corresponds with the schematic...

BUT the brown wire turned out to be snipped off right at the plug AND
was snipped off in the harness, where it splits into bundles going
to the separate plugs...

The wire DOES run to the Alternator, but isn't connected there.
If DMC hadn't done that it would have been SO much easier to retrofit
a different alternator; you'd HAVE the separate lead for volt-sensing...

Putting the Light- and Sense-wires together didn't work on the car
we were working on, so we ended up making a new connection for the
brown wire in the blue plug.

Now the car FINALLY charges its battery again!
Would have been MUCH easier if I'd have had separate contacts
for these plugs; does anyone know if and where I could get any?
Preferably on THIS side of the pond (Europe).

Sure am glad it all worked out, but these stupidities are the
things that can turn a 1 hour job into half a day of work.
What's wrong with insulating the brown wire near the alternator
and leaving it connected in the plug???

Seasons' greetings to everyone,

Jan van de Wouw

Thinking Different... Using a Mac...
Living the Dream... Driving a DeLorean...

#05141 "Dagger" since sept 2000
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