the little brown and white wire coming off of the alternator,

i bought the car with the wiring all hacked up, so i'm not sure where it connects too.

its in a 87 iroc, and the battery dosent seem to be charging up when started up, the battery is brand new and the alternator has been checked.

i was told that this wire lets the alt. know when the battery needs charging.

thanks for any help

 

you might have an open lead i think its called... or a constant draw which is what i nornally call it... couldnt tell you exactly where that lil wiring harness goes............... i have to leave my headlights up all the time and i cant plug them in because i have a constant draw and my battery dies over night..... not sure how to fix mine either but you might wanna be on the lookout for something like that......

 

Normally the small tan and white wire is a 12v positive that is hot with the ignition in the on position. It energizes the alternator so it will charge. On some models it is wired into the loom to a common hot wire that energizes several things. If it is a two wire alternator, the larger red wire should be a battery feed hot all the time. You just need to connect the tan and white wire to a good ignition feed or run a new one from the fuse box.

 

you should have either the tan, or the white, not both

it goes to the dash, a circuit in which the guage(ammeter/voltmeter) is in, along with the ignition switch

 

if your wiring is hacked and you do not feel like going through it all(recomended) buy a one wire altenator-

All you have to do is rev the motor over 1500 to excite the regulator.

I have a 82 pontiac grand prix (alot like my first ride ever) which is a hoppty and it was frying altenators left and right and I did not want to take the loom apart so I had it rebuilt and modified for the one wire setup.

Works great.

how bout the word modify.

Soo Cool!