This 1989 Ford Crown Victoria came in with a no charge condition and a customer that refused to listen. He came in a couple of days earlier and stated that he had replaced the alternator and the voltage regulator and the charge light was still on. I explained to him that he more than likely had the wires hooked up incorrectly at the rear of the alternator and if he would check and repair it it would be okay. He would probably have to replace the regulator again though because hooking up the wiring wrong would generally blow the regulator. He said he checked the wiring and it was oaky so he brought it to me. Wrong, wrong , wrong. Why do people not listen when you tell them what to do. See the terminal stud with the white plastic insulator. That is the field terminal. The alternator cannot charge with no input to this terminal. Do You see a wire attached to this terminal, No.
Yeh , I think I should connect the field wire to the ground stud or maybe the field terminal to the stator stud and the stator terminal wire to the ground stud, that makes sense. You know most people have cameras to take pictures with and everybody can find a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, to write this stuff down on!!
This is how the wiring for a Ford alternator of this era should go. The large black wire (possibly with a stripe) connects to the battery stud (marked BAT), the orange wire with a blue stripe will connect to the field terminal (marked FLD), it is the insulated stud closest to the battery stud and the white wire with a black stripe will connect to the stator terminal (marked STA), it is the only other insulated stud and it is the insulated stud farthest from the battery stud. The customer had not even taken the time to roll the terminal back into the rubber boot.
I connected the wires properly and guess what? It now charges and the charge light goes out. Unbelievable in this day and age a grown man (the customer) cannot connect three wires in the right order to an alternator, even after I told him how and he wrote it down!!!! Maybe I think this stuff is easier (because of my experience) than the rest of the world does, but come on three wires?
This system uses an external regulator. The only reason the regulator (shown below) was not damaged in all of this is that the field wire was actually broken at the terminal and was not making a connection to ground when it was improperly connected.
