jediknight7

does the charge wire from the alternator go directly to the 80 amp fuse? or are there other connections somewhere in the harness? the wire may be shorting somewhere i cant see, and i want to make a whole new one but i cant tell if there are any other connections hidden in the harness or not.

HAILERS2

EDITED

I'll revise my first answer. I think there is but one cable from the alt to the 80a fuse. But remember that cable is connected into the two circuit breakers at the top of the interior fuse box and is also connected to the single black wire that feeds the ignition switch. So any short b/t the two CB on the top of the interior fuse box and the 80a fuse can cause the fuse to pop and any short b/t the interior fuse box and the igniton switch can cause the 80a fuse to pop.

The connector that connects the alt output terminal/cable with those two CB and the ignition switch is a plug designated X-23 which is a one wire black connector located just below and inboard of the engine bay fuse box.

HAILERS2

Heck. I'll revise again and say I don't really know. If I look at my 87 wiring manual it shows one cable with a smaller wire spliced into it to feed a plug called X-23 which in turn feeds the igniton switch and the two CB on top of the interior fuse box.

The 88 online wiring manual is disfunctional in this regard as far as I'm concerned.

On 88 cars the X-23 plug I mentioned is called FE-01. Same animal just a different designator.

Akagis_white_comet

iTrader: (4)

On my 87 GXL, the alternator output cable was teed in halfway to the cable going from the battery to the main fuse. After pulling off all the crusty, gooey tape, I found it was STAPLED on. My advice would be to pull the output cable, snip it at the staple and replace it with some 4AWG. If cash is tight, Walmart has premade 4AWG battery cables with the lugs already attached. 3ft is more than enough length to reach the battery too.

If you're planning on an alternator upgrade, you'll have to do this anyway. Might as well get it out of the way now.

jediknight7

thanks for the info. i thought about cleaning/re-wrapping that area of the harness when i had the engine out and easy access, but i was in a time crunch and skipped it. got an s5 alt in there now and seems to be running fine, but new a new charge wire is gonna go on the to-do list...