Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Mega Fuse Question

This alternator is from CarQuest actually, th 1st one in was an autozone one

Ok the saga continues, My mechanic says the harness that snaps into the alternator is bad. He tells me that it controls the alternator and tells it when to charge etc. He said he jumped the wiring and it started to charge. So he wants to rewire the section and see if it will work. help me out here, I thought that alternators were always pumping energy when spinning, I wasnt aware that a computer told it to start sending 14.5V out. As before, there is 12V from the battery to the alternator post, running or not running. All the grounds are in place and everything is tight. Thanks for your input.

He is correct.
http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=trouble&Number=1043318&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=all&vc=1

OK, so what gauge wire should I be using to splice with etc? Thanks again.

Alrighty, I finally got sometime today to pull the harness of the alternator and test it. I am getting the same voltage ( approx 12V ) end to end, from the battery to the harness ends I get 12V. there are 3 wires, one is the red one, a blue one I think, and the grayish one that clips into the alternator at the bottom. What do all these wires do? I know I need to make sure the alternator is grounded, how do i do this? And finally, if all these things pass, the voltage passing all the way, the grounding is good, etc. Then would it be safe to assume the alternator is no good? Any opinions are greatly appreciated. Off to patch up my scrapes and bruises....

What year and what engine?

Autozone has some good schematics. Try Figure 10 - Diagram 9

http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBroker?ForwardPage=/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/1e/b3/2d/0900823d801eb32d.jsp

Grey to ground, big Red to Megafuse, Green/Black to instrument cluster (battery charge light), and the small Red wire is supposed to be cut and spliced on the big red connector at the alternator (look at the diagram posted by Goldentour).

it is a 95 mystique, duratec.

Yay, the wiring fix made the difference! Thx again. I am charging away once again.