got a pretty dumb question but anyways will the alternator work if the clip that comes from the engine wiring harness is not hooked on becuase all i got on there is the other wire that u screw on from the body side harness...

 

that is for the voltage regulator. on my car with that not hooked up i put out less voltage. id get it hooked up.

-marc

 

That plug is for the voltage regulator built into the Alt. The way I understand it, if you run without it plugged in the Alt will put out constant voltage and increase as the RPM's go up... The higher the RPM's the higher the Voltage (within the limits of the alt of course) When the voltage gets too high... you start to fry things including the alt itself. Also, the battery is designed to receive a certain voltage range from the alt so, not enough or too much can ruin a good battery too.

 

by the way is that a black clip that goes to the alt or is it a white clip...

 

The connector is for detecting load on the charging circuit to initiate a charging cycle. If it detects low voltage, it kicks in a voltage output cycle. If its not plugged in, most alternators will default to a predefined voltage at low amperage. Don't run your car for long like this it WILL kill your battery.

Most alternators, that connector... one wire is voltage sense for what I described above.. the other is typically for an alternator fault output. If it has voltage, the check battery/alt light is on. In my pathfinder, the battery light comes on when it has voltage. It SHOULD only have voltage when the car is off. Soon as it detects the car has started and load is applied to the system, it shuts off.

Thats my understanding anyways.

 

wow..

The two wires on the connector to the alternator are the FIELD wire and the SENSE wire.

One supplies 12VDC to the alternator coils so they start generating a charge, and one is the SENSE (self explanatory).

Rat

 

My description was paraphrased almost directly out of the pathfinder's haynes manual. I guess the two are different..... man, I feel like a dumbass now.

 

dee da dee. haha. oops. my bad

 

I love this forum. This is going to be easy to answer.

The question about what color is the plug???? Easy. Color it GONE. since I'd bet you put a Turbo EM harness on a non-turbo car.

I think the color GONE is one of the Primary colors.