1962-1964 Ford/Mercury Wagon Guys

Discussion in 'General Automotive Tech' started by ChiefDanGeorge, Sep 26, 2016.

  1. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    I rang out the wires and the Battery feed from alternator was ringing on F and S. Pulled the alternator plug and rang the wires out that way and had no rings. Noticed one of the spade plugs on the alternator was a bit bent, but thought that was probably just the alignment of the old plug and new fitings on alternator. Put the plug back on and fired it up and was getting no voltage from alternator so pulled the plug again. That spade plug was bending down and not going into wiring plug. GOt that taken care of and fired it back up and all looks good. I did try a more direct connection to battery from battery alternator wire but discovered the Ammeter in dash is obviously splitting off from that long routing. Put jumper to reconnect the long run and voltages look good. The Ammeter was not swinging full into the charge side either, so it seems to be working, but I don't know that I've fixed anything.
    I think what I am going to do is put a fuse block in where I need to splice the wires back together.
     
  2. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    Wait. You have an ammeter? That changes the wiring somewhat. When you have an ammeter, you have to have a shunt (basically a single stud the charge and ammeter wiring are connected to), or the full alternator output will go through the ammeter, and you'll have a bad day if you do not have a fuse link on the ammeter + lead.
     
  3. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    Yep, Mercury had Ammeters in 63, not sure when they moved to Voltmeters.
     
  4. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    Voltmeters didn't hit till the '80s. Babe has an ammeter, which means she has a shunt. Stop snickering.
     
  5. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    Got some 8awg wire to splice in and decided to use this as an excuse to buy a decent crimp tool. Thought about soldering the wires together, but 8 AWG is too much metal for my poor iron to solder I'm afraid. GOing to do a butt connector.
     
  6. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    You can use the metal ferrule inside the crimp connector and sweat solder the connection together. I did that on the headlamp power feed in Babe when I replaced the switch pigtail.
     
  7. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    Got a nice inline fuse holder from local auto stereo installer, then realized the car wiring was really 10AWG, not 8 when I attempted to crimp the butt connector. No worries, had some 10AWG butt connectors and used that. I think I am going to try and find a different inline filter holder as the one I have use 5ag fuse types which are hard to find locally. I want to fuse the wire at 30-40 amps as 10AWG is rated at 30 amp capacity. Anyway, things seem to be functioning well, drove the car last night a good bit and the wiring only seemed warm because of the under hood temps.
     
  8. martyk98

    martyk98 Well-Known Member

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    Daamn, you guys are all over this!
     
  9. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    I'd like to know how it's going since Chief's last post.
     
  10. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    My repair seems to have worked. ALthough I still need to mount the inline fuse holder instead of letting it just hang by the wires. Still not sure what caused the over current to begin with.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2017
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  11. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    That's good to hear. Just keep a sharp eye on the connections from time to time, looking for any overheated spots. Don't need a carbeque.
     
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  12. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    No doubt, troubling that I couldn't figure out what caused the issue. I do know the over current happened quite a long time ago just from the condition of the wire(lots of oxidation on the copper).

     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2017
  13. Grizz

    Grizz Are we there yet???

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    So it was just a bent connector?! This happened to me and a trailer. I couldn't figure out why the lights on one side wouldn't work. One day later I pulled the plug to the hitch and one of the prongs was bent down and not connecting. What was even worse, my neighbor was there watching. And laughing.
     
  14. ChiefDanGeorge

    ChiefDanGeorge Well-Known Member

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    No, I was under hood trying to figure out why the voltage regulator was allowing 16+V through. In my poking around I found a wire that was way too hot, unwrapped the electrical tape wrapping the wire bundle and found the battery charge wire from alternator had melted insulation. I clipped the section of wire out, spliced in some new wire and inline fuse and low and behold the voltage regulator was able to control the voltage.
    What may have been happening is the oxidation was so bad, the resistance of the wire was affected causing it to over current.

     
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  15. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    It's possible that the bad section was shorting out, causing the field winding to go 'full-field.' But it's good you got that resolved.
     

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