One wire alternator

Author Topic: One wire alternator  (Read 3926 times)

Offline yellow340

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 65
One wire alternator
« on: May 02, 2005 - 03:04:21 PM »
I have a 140 amp powermaster alternator in my '73 Challenger that is wired fro the alt directly to the battery my concern is the off chance the wire from the alt to batt shorts out against something.   In order to prevent a fire in case the charging wire did short out against something i'm thinking about instating a circuit breaker.   Would I want to mount the breaker as close to the battery as possable?   They come in 80, 100, 140, & 200 amp what size would work best?   Here is the url of what i'm looking at http://www.cardomain.com/shoplist~b~Lightning+Audio~t~Circuit+Breakers
« Last Edit: May 02, 2005 - 03:06:36 PM by yellow340 »




Offline MEK-Dangerfield

  • C-C.com Expert
  • ********
  • Posts: 20946
  • I don't get NO respect! Member since 1/25/2002
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2005 - 03:18:05 PM »
yellow340,
   That's an interesting question. I don't think I've seen such a setup before. You like to think of everything, don't you?  :laughing: The thing you want to do is place the circuit breaker as close to the source as possible. That being the alternator. I'm not sure how you would pull that off. As far as the circuit breaker rating, you need something less than it's max. output. I'll be honest, unless you have AC and a bunch of other stuff draining the system, 140 amps is more than enough. Given the choices, I guess I'd go with the 100 amp breaker.

  Mike

Mike

1970 Challenger - SOLD
2016 SXT+.  1 of 524 SXT+'s in Plumb-crazy for 2016.

Offline yellow340

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 65
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2005 - 03:42:09 PM »
Thanks for the input.

The last thing I want is to lose my car to a fire, as I was looking at the wiring was thinking sure hope this doesn't short out and burn my car down.   The reason I went with 140 AMP is I'm running a Accel Gen 7 EFI system, electric fuel pump, and Spal 16" fan just wanted to make sure I had enough juce to run every thing at idle.

Offline MEK-Dangerfield

  • C-C.com Expert
  • ********
  • Posts: 20946
  • I don't get NO respect! Member since 1/25/2002
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2005 - 03:56:48 PM »
OK,
  Now I see the light. Do you have any pics. of your setup? That must look real nice.

  Mike

Mike

1970 Challenger - SOLD
2016 SXT+.  1 of 524 SXT+'s in Plumb-crazy for 2016.

Offline yellow340

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 65
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2005 - 04:36:58 PM »
here's an old pic, I'll try to take some more tonight.

Offline yellow340

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 65
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2005 - 09:13:37 PM »
couple more pics.




Offline 71 DEPUTY

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 727
  • IF YOU CAN'T DODGE IT--RAM IT!
    • Cardomain
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2005 - 07:01:36 AM »
if you are using almost that 100 amps up- then a 100 amp unit will be tripping all the time. use the next one up.  but- make sure all that wiring between the alt and the battery can handle all that extra amps.

Most of that era wiring could handle up to about 60-70 amps- but the bulkhead wiring clips where rated only for 30 amps- thats why there is so many melting/troubles with the bulkhead wiring!!!!!

cudagirl440pk

  • Guest
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #7 on: May 03, 2005 - 04:23:48 PM »
We put a powermaster one wire alternator 100 amps on my cuda and works great. :burnout:

Offline ACE_5150

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 65
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2005 - 11:00:45 PM »
We put a powermaster one wire alternator 100 amps on my cuda and works great. :burnout:

 I am wanting to get away from that whole voltage regulator thing too. Where can I find a powermaster alternaotr? How much do they run$ ? And is there a different bracketry it requires? I was going to go to a Gm alternator but not looking forward to fabbing some new brackets! Thats never fun. I 'm tired of my lights dimming out on idle, and sometimes my radio shuts off. I'm also running electric fans and MSD 6a.
"An Adrenal Gland is a Terrible thing to waste!"
"Bad Cop, No Donut!"

Offline yellow340

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 65
Re: One wire alternator
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2005 - 11:46:36 PM »
I'm running part number PWM-8-47529 Summit has it for 195.95.   Used factory brackets for the install just had to make some spacers to line everything up.