For those of you who enjoy living vicariously through the uninformed,
I present you with the following situation. If you recall, I thought I
blew the alternator in my car. Tested dead. I went to pull it out, and I
find that the hot wire has corroded off the post, and the post is EXTREMELY
loose and swirly in the alternator housing. So I pull the SOB (NOT an easy
task on a 2000), and run it to United Battery in Portland to have it
rebuilt. No problem the guy says, should be ready by Monday afternoon.
Off to a wedding my wife and go in the rig (69 Chev, sense a pattern?), and
I get a call on my cell on the way home from United Battery. Good old Pat
says I cooked the everliving crap out my alternator, and suggest replacing
it with a (drum roll please) 66 amp Delco (GM) one wire. He says the
Mitsubishi unit, which he can get, is absolutely worthless. He says the GM
will bolt right in to the existing setup. Unconvinced, and completely
automotive electronics illiterate, I go to the shop to speak with him face
to face. He's seems familiar with Roadsters (I made his day when I told
him about the Datsun meet at Blue Lake park June 4th), and swears that he
has sold alts for a number of conversions and that it's a piece of cake.
So I take the plunge for $63 and now I'm getting ready to give it a shot.
Now comes the good part. Am I right in that the early 1600's came
with the stock alt on the pax side? He kept talking about 1600's, and I am
beginning to question whether or not this is going to "slip right in". The
dimensions are a little bigger, although the holes appear to line up. I
had a hell of a time getting the old one out, having to pull all the rad
hoses and loosen the window wash reservoir before I could in to the damn
thing. This guy insisted that:
The only wire I need to hook up is the "one" hot wire.
No need to ground.
No need to fusable link.
Ammeter should still work, would only possibly get blown out if I
drew a charge of greater than 30 amps, which should only happen if
I'm stone cold dead.
So tell me what's wrong with this picture. It sounds too good to be true.
Daniel Beatty put the Summit racing 100 amp model in his 1600 and he only
hooked up the one hot wire also, and he says it works fine. He hasn't
wired back up his ammeter yet though. I'll be out in the garage futzing
with the "drop it right theory", but if you have any dire warnings or good
advice, shoot it to me. I'd do the "move to the other side" project, but
it looks like the bracketing issues on a 2000 are a lot more complex than
my feeble skills. If it fits in the old space, you guys can show me how
the hell to move at Blue Lake on the 4th. Thanks in advance.
69 SRL
NOWROC
Troutdale, OR
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