I have one on my 67' Mustang and I have to screw in a connector to the battery terminal if I want to start it (I leave it unscrewed when not driving it for a while). It gets really hot and I'm pretty sure battery acid may be leaking. I'm wondering if I should change to a regular alternator.How does a %26039;Single-Line Alternator%26039; work, and is it necessarily beneficial?
A sinlge wire alternator, and a regular alternator are really the same thing. A %26quot;regular%26quot; alternator has the output wire and then another 2 wire plug. One of these is pulsed output that can actually be converted to drive a tach, and the other is the field activation wire. This typically runs up to a 10 amp (or so) fuse, and then to the ignition switch. Thus this only %26quot;activates%26quot; the alternator when the key is on.
To convert a %26quot;regular%26quot; alternator to a single wire alternator, you simply jump the field activation wire to the output wire (which has battery voltage).
The field activation does draw some current. If this vehicle is not a daily driver, then it will tend to discharge a battery. Just be advised that to convert to a %26quot;regular%26quot; alternator you must run a fused ignition voltage wire to the alternator (i.e. you can't just bolt it on and expect it to work).
