I have read several of the articles at MADelectrical, and am now thinking my battery boiling problem may have something to do with where the VR voltage sensing wire is reading voltage in the electrical system.

My 100 amp alt has 4 wires: ground(4 Ga Black), main power output (4 Ga Red), and two field wires; one blue (ignition power, 18? Ga) and one green (18? Ga, goes directly to VR) Is this green wire the voltage sensing wire, and if so, should I re-route this wire to run between my "distribution block" (battery isolator in my case) and the VR? Or does this (green) wire NEED to be connected to the second field wire terminal on the alternator for it to charge?

A somewhat unrelated question, does anyone know what the amperage rating of the factory orange fusible links were?

Thx
-S/6

_________________
The "Silver Bullet"
87 Ram D150

What Color was your Battery (i'm taking it you were using an Optima battery?)

the reason i'm asking this is that certain colors are for certain uses. The Yellow top battery is a SECONDARY ONLY and should not have ANY loads on it, i belive if you ask at a shop they'll tell you this. if i remeber correctly you were running everything off of the second battery?

Leave the Green wire where it is, it must be like that for it to charge, the blue wire should also go to the VR it i'm not mistakin

no clue on the fuseable links :s

Justin

The yellow top is a deep cycle. I'm not sure what you mean by not having any loads on it, infact that is the whole point of a deep cycle battery you can load it and completely drain it without having severly ill affects on it. It will perform just fine if used as a main starting battery. Infact the manufacturer recomends it be used as a main battery in a car parked for long times that has an alarm or computer that slowly draws current while the car isn't started.

The optima's are red-tops (starting, not deep cycle) Deep cycle batteries are indeed made to handle constant current loads (like that of marine apps, where depth finders, electric pumps, etc are a constat load) Deep cycles are NOT made for starting. They are not designed for the high-amperage draw of a starter, they are more for lower-amperage constant drains.

Both the ignition wire (blue) and the VR sensing wire connect to the VR and the alt. The green wire runs between the VR and alt only, while the blue wire connects to both the VR and alt, and continues to the MSD "on" trigger wire, the electric choke, and the ignition switch (as shown in the original wiring diagram, except originally the blue wire was connected to the + terminal of the coil before the MSD was installed)

Everything (that is currently hooked up) runs off the main battery except the MSD. The large gauge power and ground wires from the MSD are connected to the aux battery (as they have been for 6 years). Currently the MSD is the only load on the aux battery. When everything is hooked up, the aux battery also runs my radio, amp, and auxillary lights.

As of now, the only thing I have really changed in the wiring diagram is the elimination of four fusible links, which I replaced with a fuse box and fuses (have not blown any of them yet....10 amp fuses) The fusible links replaced were for the following devices:
1) ignition
2) ignition
3) hazard flasher
4) headlights

Short of some miraculous cure, I am going to re-wire the fuse block to accept the blade-type fusible links for both ignition feeds. I am going to leave the plain fuses for the headlights and hazard flasher. This is driving me nuts because from an electrical engineering standpoint, looking at the wiring diagram I drew up as I replaced the wiring, nothing is wrong (and two of my friends are in their last year of school for electrical engineering, they concur the ignition circuit is fine in theory)

The last two checks I am going to do (again...) are tracing the field wires looking for cracked wires/shorting, and checking all engine bay grounds. My DVM says the wiring is fine (good continuity), but who knows, maybe I am missing something.

Sheesh, how am I ever supposed to try to put together an EFI system when I can't even make simple electronics work right

-S/6