It was determined in the Audio Forum, that my many problems were due to my aging alternator. So, the new H/O alternator is on its way, along with 10 feet of 1/0 ga. wire, and some ring terminals.
How do I upgrade my alternator? Basically, all I know is that I need to unbolt the stock and stick in the new. But, I thought it was going to be a 2 wire hookup, positive and negative. However, there was one harness, with maybe 6 wires in it (going to the fuse box?), a single 16 ga. white wire, and an 8 gauge black wire with red stripe.
People say I need a new wire to the battery's positive, and others say a simple negative wire upgrade is enough. Obviously I have conflicting arguments. PLEASE HELP ME WITH THE STEP-BY-STEP!!!
1994 Ford Explorer XLT
4WD
AUTOMATIC
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~WAYLAND
I've bough car repair manuals for almost all of the cars in our house and included in them is a wireing schematic or discription of what the wires are used for on the alternator. You might want to go to Auto Zoneor e-bay tolook for the manual for your car. Check to see if you can find what you're looking for before you buy it though. Some books have more info than others.
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Poly Dollies
To be honest, the length of the stock wire to the positive terminal of your battery is so short that upgrading the wire isn't all that important until you reach the point where you have an extremly high output alternator. I'm speaking of something twice the output or more than the stock alternator. In most newer cars that wire get routed through a fuse box first anyway. Your ground wire is often overlooked by the OEM, so if you've got some extra wire laying around go ahead and upgrade that. Although, if possible don't mess with the originals just run your new ground in addition to the old wires and it basicaly just need to be put to a solid part of the frame or body of the car.
Other than that the addition of your new alternator should be simple as long as you've purchased one that doesn't require any modifications, in other words OER.