Hey guys I just picked up at 86 Firebird to be a project car and a DD, i got tired of the comfortable settings of an 02 Buick Century, any way fast foward to this week my alternator is dead, before I install the new one when it gets in the set up to the battery from the girl i got the car from was a wire stright from the alternator to the positive battery ternminal, how can i hook this up right.



thats the set up on the car now, worked fine for a week or two but im afraid that that wire is what cause the alternator to crap out, i just want to make sure it would be ok to run it with out any regulation on the line

 

the regulator is built into the alt, it only has the wire form the post on the back to the battery terminal

 

alright thanks, and is it normal before an alternator goes, that the regulator might go? the day before it completley went the voltmeter was showing 19-20 reading and if it hit 20 the CEL came on then went off, i resovled that issue by running with the lights on with high beams on and heater on, Rear defroster

 

yeah if the regulator blows out the alt will just put out as much voltage as it can.

 

so would it be a safe theory that if the regulator went it would cause the alternator to put out as much juice as posible causing it to burn out?

 

yes

 

I ordered a new Alternator untill it gets here i will be making daly stops at Autozone so they charge my battery, the second part of this car thats bothering me is my temp guage always low, the highest i saw it was around 190 and that was once, its always ready like 120-150, i have a new thermostat sitting in the car but my main consern is that its the waterpump, is there a quick way to test the water pump?

 

If it leaks then its bad. Does the motor heat up, do you have good heat? the gauge might just be wrong...

 

2 things here.
1. Keep this in mind in terms of batteries and alternators: bad alternators kill batteries (and in our cases, ECMs and other things if the regulator craps out, hence the high system voltage code), and bad batteries kill alternators.
2. Our 17+ year old gauges and sending units weren't all that accurate from the factory. Chances are that your gauge is off. If you're not losing coolant or boiling over all the time, don't worry about it.