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Hey guys so I picked up a 89 rs that has been swapped to a carbed 350 small block and I cannot find an alternator plug anywhere on it. It has the ground but no charge wire? Any help would be awesome.
The "charge" wire is that big fat red one. Goes on the insulated post. Can't tell if it's hooked up to it or not.
There's no "ground" wire for it.
That's not the stock alt for the car. It's on the wrong side of the motor, for one thing; and that alt uses a different connector than what the car has, for another. Which might make it that much harder to find its plug. That said, it's not impossible that it's a "one-wire" alt; basically, a normal alt, that's been hacked internally to at least charge (somewhat) even without a connection to anything besides the batt. A lazy and ignorant person's way of half-a$$ing the situation; marginally, if not completely, effective. If it keeps the batt charged up that's probably what it is.
I can't really tell what's in the pic. Except that, the thing that the red wires all appear to go to, shouldn't be ground; it should be the + batt cable.
The open plug on top of the alt is for the usual wiring from the car to plug into; it would contain an exciter / warning light wire, and a voltage sense wire. A "one wire" alt is internally hacked so that it will somewhat function even without those. The connector in the alt where those wires would plug into, is usually left in place even if the alt is internally modified.
I’m not sure exactly what’s going on with this alternator all I know is that one wire connected is going to that spot next to the radiator and that’s it. It doesn’t charge the battery at all.
That's just it, I can't tell what that thing is that the wires are bolted to.
If it's plastic, it's probably some sort of "binding post"; and it needs one more wire, which would go from there to the + batt terminal. Obviously it would want to be a very thick wire; #10 at the smallest.
If that thing is metal then it's a major PO efffffup and needs to be undone and done right.
It's a power 'junction block. Positive wire leads to it from the battery cable and then various other positive wires connect to it. Was factory installed on some 88+ cars.
Take the Alternator off and bring it to the parts store for testing.
You have an engine swap, with an accessory arrangement that puts the alt on the wrong side of the engine from where it came. Pretty sure it's also not the alt the car came with, and uses a different wiring arrangement from what the car is equipped with. Not sure whether you could put the "right" alt in that "wrong" place.
In a word, a mess. A hackjob. Looks like somebody substituted chrome for brains.
If possible, you could maybe find the car's original alt wiring, which will be on the other side from where the alt now is; and see if it would be practical to move it over to the opposite side, and then put in the right alt, in the wrong place.
You could maybe get the right accessory arrangement for your car and put the whole thing back together the way it belongs. If it was mine that's probably what I would do. Besides all the brackets, tensioner & idler pulleys, etc., you'd need a different water pump for sure, maybe a different power steering pump, maybe a few other things.
You could just finish the hookup of the alt you have (add a wire from that plastic block to the + batt terminal, if there isn't one, etc.) and see if that gets what you have to at least work. It might "suffice" if whatever mistakes were made in installing it, were fixed. It might not; it might be bad and need replaced.
None of us out here can tell you these things until you get out there and do some stuff other than post on the Internet about it.
A trip to the quarter car wash might help things become clearer: you wouldn't have to try to peer through a half-inch of mud, animal droppings or whatever that is on top of the intake, etc. just to find things. Colors might even appear instead of everything in there being that sort of uniform brown shade.
I’ve definitely done way more than post on the Internet. There’s absolutely no reason to hate on someone asking for help. If you don’t care to talk decent don’t comment on the thread it’s simple. Like I said I’m new to these cars I’m used to the imports. Now I’ve bought a new alt because the one I had was bad and I also found that the bolt on the junction block was broke pretty much clean off so it wasn’t doing any good. So my question is can i hook up a wire going from the alt straight to the battery or is this not a good idea?
Nobody is "hate"ing on anybody or anything. We're trying to get you to DO stuff instead of just asking questions that don't matter and don't help toward fixing your car, and to understand that whoever worked on that car before you got it, FORNICATED it. You likely have much bigger problems hiding all over it that are just waiting to bite you in the shorts, judging by the overall quality of that person's activity.
Yes you could do that; just make sure you use fusible link wire of the right size. Go nab the wire off of a 4.8, 5.3, or 6.0 truck in the junkyard, for example. Any of those in the early-mid 2000s will have what you need. Otherwise, if anything goes wrong, it could start a fire.
One way or another though, you're gonna have to get that junction block back working again. Functionally, I mean. Not necessarily by replacing it with the exact same thing, or in the exact same place, or whatever; but, one way or another, all the wires that go there, need to be fed battery power somehow. Might be possible, for example, to go to a 2-way radio supply (no I'm not talking about Radio Shack... more, the kind of place that professionals who work on police cars and such might use) and get one of those blocks that they use for such things.
It's AHELLUVALOT eeeeeezier to work on now that it's cleaned up, isn't it?
