Okay before I get into this, let me give you a general describtion of everything going on with my 1987 Chevy Camaro. About three weeks ago I was having severe overheating problems, I later checked out everything to do with the coolant system and eventually found out I had to replace the water pump.

Since I knew I was going to be down there in the first place, my friend and I decided to replac everything while we're at it. So I had the money of course, I got a new Holley avenger double-pump carburater, we replaced my fuel pump, belts, thermostat and housing and a few more things. Basically we did allmsot everything that we could think of.

But noo.... by the time everything was finished, I found out that when this man took off my alternater so we could get to the water pump he forgot where the negative ground wire from the battery goes. So he ends up bolting it on the same metal frame that holds the alternater, ends up being a bad choice because when driving it on the road my battery wouldn't hold a charge for anything.

SOO... this dude goes and fiddles around with my alternater while the battery is still connect, sends sparks flying everywhere and I think he fried my alternater. He takes it off and acts like he didn't do anything wrong.. some "friend". Then he tells me that he can't even get to my car again till friday, and that I shouldn't try to put the alternater on myself. Its rediculous because he don't have as much as an idea to whats going on as I do. All I know is he screwed up.

Now, I think its shot.. i'm going to have it tested today and most likely will have to get a new one.

But sorry for the long describtion, my main question is: When I get the new alternater, where do i put the ground wires at?
Especially the negative one.. i have no idea. I don't know as much about cars as my friend, but best believe he's not coming NEAR my car again. Do you guys have any shots or anything of a properly installed alternater in a 1987 Chevy Camaro 305 engine?

I sincerily appreciate any help/comments on this...

-vincent

 

Believe it or not, the negative cable from the battery attaches to the alternator bracket. It goes on the end of the long through bolt.

 

It uses the block as the ground, but if you are afraid of bolting it on there just bolt it anywhere on the block. But the bracket should be fine.

Maybe your alternator is already fried, or your battery is gone??

Check them both.

Good luck.

 

I ran into this when doing the serpentine belt swap on my '87 TPI. The original v-belt setup DID have the negative batt cable on the lower alt. bracket, so that would be where it should go. After the swap, I no longer had a good place on the bracket to put it. So I got a longer negative batt cable and put it under a fuel pump blockoff plate bolt and ran a #8 wire from the top alt bolt to the same location as the neg cable. It works fine this way. My point is that I think the alt frame and the battery cable should be connected to the same location and, apparently, so did the General. YMMV

 

check your fuses. if you touched the positive wire to the battery to ANYTHING metal and it caused sparks it would probably blow the fuse first. Alternator may still be crap though. if the fuse is the problem, check the voltage at the battery while the car is running. It should be around 14 volts whether the battery is good or not.