my alternator is not charging. as this is my first engine rebuild i do not know if i installed it correctly. on the alternator there is two connections for field, one for ground, and one for the battery. in my quest to determine if it was wired wrong or just dead, i took it to three different auto parts stores. all three store employees lacked the IQ to hook it to their alternator testing machines properly. can you guys give me any info on how this should be wired? the car is a 64 dodge dart with mechanical distributor. thanks.

Need more info on the alternator- is this an early "round back" alternator of they type that would originally come with a 64 dart, or is it the later "square back" type?

If its the "round back" type, you should have two terminals on the alternator:

1) the B+ or "Bat" terminal- threaded stud sticking out of the back of the alternator. The heavy wire with a ring terminal on your wiring harness attaches here- its essentially a direct connection to the battery (via the ammeter and wiring harness).

2) A single "field" terminal. This hooks to a blue wire with a female spade connector in your wiring harness, and leads back to the voltage regulator.

The alternator is grounded through its attachment to the engine.


If its a square-back alternator, then it has 3 connections:

1) B+, same as above,
2 and 3) two male spade connectors for the field connections.

Now in order to determine how the two field connections should be wired, I need to know what kind of voltage regulator you have.

If you're using the original '64 style, then one of the field terminals should be grounded using a short piece of wire connected to a convenient chassis bolt, and the other connected to the regulator (doesn't matter which).


If you're running the late style regulator, then one of the terminals should be connected to ignition-switched 12 volt power and so should the "middle/top" terminal on the triangular regulator connector, and the other should go back to the "side" terminal on the triangular regulator connectgor, and the regulator itself should be firmly grounded to the vehicle chassis.

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since you have two fields try connecting one to the spade connector and grounding the other with just a wire to a bolt. This worked for me on a new alternator which wasn't charging.

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