Car Blog: No idea what I'm doing.: I'm positively charged about this upgrade

Guys, that title is clever as hell. Why, because I finally got myself a NEW ALTERNATOR. Time to upgrade my ignition!

The dudes at PA Performance were awesome and actually called me up to verify I got the correct alternator. Apparently, there can be a 1/4 thickness difference where the bracket touches the alternator. After making a quick measurement, they actually corrected my order so I received the correct type of alternator. Great guys, great product and I'm happy. (no this isn't a product placement, I payed good money for this).

So Let's break down what you see in that picture;
New ignition cable (red thing) and new 3G alternator, internally regulated. (HEY Mike, you dummy, isn't that a new regulator up in the top left?)

Oh, I pulled a fast one on ya. A ruse. A little trick. Check this out:

My old, Ford regulator on the top left there and the ...'new' PA performance on the right. Now, let's just flip them over and....

Check it out, it is basically a regulator 'delete'. (now pictured at the left) This makes it so I can keep my normal harness and make wiring changes minimal. Pretty slick right?

(Spoiler: I don't use this at all.)

So let's yoink the regulator, which is tucked up behind the battery, near the passenger side's headlight.

After loosening the brackets, removing the belt and disconnecting some wires; the old alternator comes out.

Yeah, it looks like it has seen some days. I don't know if you can see or not, buuuuut basically all the terminals are fried. The ground terminal stud and bolt are fused together....not sure what was happening there. The Battery + stud on there was in the same shape. If you read last week's post, this is where the light show was coming from when Jim was rightfully concerned about a potential fire hazard.

If I'm getting a new alternator, I should probably upgrade all the wiring going to and more importantly, from- AKA, 'the return path'.

I'm covered with the wiring going to the alternator from the battery; It comes with a huge maxi-fuse and a solid 4 gauge wire. (pictured in that first picture).

Let's take a look at the harness. This is what connected the regulator to the alternator.

At the end of that harness (right side) is a yellow connector that goes into the regulator. Or in this case, the new, regulator-delete. First, let's look at a diagram to see what I need to salvage...(spoiler, almost nothing)

Kay - there are literally two wires I care about. The B+ cable (which came with the new unit) and the "I" wire and that is the wire that runs to what normally would be the "I"/Ignition into the regulator.

After staring at this, it hit me:
I don't need the new "delete" or anything. I just need to connect that stupid I wire to where the split came out of the harness. In fact, I can throw that entire old harness away. Rad.

Wiring Fun

Okay, moving on to the return path. Let's upgrade the negative/positive battery cables while I'm at it as well.

They have seen better days as well! They say that if you upgrade your charging system, you gotta make sure you upgrade paths in and out of it as well.

Also, let's look at all my accessories hookups in the picture below... good lord! It's like Christmas lights except most of this was my fault. Tree lights magically tangle up in the box, that isn't anyone's fault. This is science; everyone knows that.

So, my next step was to clean all that up...as much as I can anyway. I hit up Summit and snagged me a junction box, to organize all those connections.

Boom.

So of course, while I was rewiring everything to use this new post, I snap a "mystery wire's" terminal ring.

It's on a fusible link...so it is probably important....

A fusible link, in this case, is a segment of wire that is meant to melt away if something in your electrical circuit decides it wants to revive Frankenstein. When it melts, it will safely cut the circuit and prevent nasty fires in your car. Think of it like a fuse, but with a bit more...leeway. Like if the circuit gets a quick spike in amperage, it might pop an ordinary fuse - in the case of a fusible link, it acts like a bit of a buffer.

Anyway, That mystery wire ended being the main power to my ignition harness. Which ends up powering the accessory post as well.

I re-crimped the wire and finished wiring everything up. Alright...nothing is bolted down yet but here is everything kind of wired up....