I recently purchased a 200 amp 1 wire alternator for my 70 Electra. I am putting a killer stereo system in it and decided on a 1 wire set up. The easy part is wiring the alternator to the battery. My question is what to do with the rest of the wiring that goes to the old voltage regulator? I have a aftermarket voltmeter gauge, but want the stock idiot light wired up. I have been looking at the wiring diagram for the 70 Electra charging system and am stumped.
The way that idiot light was wired was it was voltage from the gauge fuse on one side of the light, and when voltage from the regulator kicked in voltage flowed from pin 4 up the brown wire too....now you had a power feed on both sides which basically equaled no voltage flowing, meaning no light. When the voltage from regulater stopped flowing out of pin 4 the voltage from the fuse side pushed through and actually went in pin 4 and then to ground as you see the tiny terminal leading to ground ( just to the right of pin4) as with key on not running or failed alternator or regulator, which causes the bulb to light up. Not sure how to keep this working with a 1 wire. When I installed mine I just Un hooked the regulator and in doing so the bulb never finds ground, never turns on, but that's not what you want to do
What alternator do you have? The 10 and 12 SI models can be made into a one wire a couple of different ways, one of them being with a regulator that has a lite function. If you have a CS series alt I don't think there is a one wire regulator for them that also has a functioning lite circuit as the 10 and 12 SI series do.
I have switched to 1 wire , but used one with a terminal for the idiot light. You can see it here under "Instructions" Maybe you have this terminal too. http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/10120/10002/-1
All I did was put the factory hot wire onto the new alt and tucked the 2 wire plug outta sight. Left the reg alone for the stock appearance and my alt light works as it should.
My alternator is a 10SI and it does have the other 2 terminals. That is the way ille go. Wire up the alternator directly to the battery, and plug the idiot light in the left terminal on the alternator. Will a voltmeter gauge also work correctly plugged into this terminal? I have aftermarket gauges including a voltmeter gauge so I can keep a eye on exactly what the engine is doing.
Check out madelectrical.com. They have a very good write up on the 1-wire vs. 3-wire alternators, plus other good electrical tech articles.
From what I remember, you don't want to go directly to the battery from the alternator. It's best to go to a main distribution point, so the alternator can "sense" and supply what the whole system needs 13.5 V, not just the battery. Dewey
