to fuse or not to fuse alt to battery wire, that is the question

[shizzzon 10+ year member]

the regulator cannot work effectively without a battery connection.

No one here in this thread has never heard how bad it is to remove the alt power line from the batt while the car is on?

It's time to do research guys...

Also, when doing the Big 3... if you leave the factory wire in tact which is what you are suppose to do anyway and, in addition, add a larger AWG wire from alt to batt, if you fuse that, how in the hell is a HO alt going to "safely" send high current loads through a small wire that is probably NOT rated to handle such current?

What could happen... well lets see-

Keep factory wiring in place but fuse your new additional wire form alt to batt-

If the fuse pops, your voltage wont spike because you still have factory connection but if a load gets presented, a very high demand, if that factory 4,6 or 8awg wire isn't capable of handling the current the alt is about to send out to run this very high demand, it will burn up or catch the wire on fire... Why? because you have allowed the larger wire, the wire that should do most the current transfer get terminated because a fuse is on there and if it pops, that's bad bad bad again.

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

the regulator cannot work effectively without a battery connection.
No one here in this thread has never heard how bad it is to remove the alt power line from the batt while the car is on?

It's time to do research guys...

Also, when doing the Big 3... if you leave the factory wire in tact which is what you are suppose to do anyway and, in addition, add a larger AWG wire from alt to batt, if you fuse that, how in the hell is a HO alt going to "safely" send high current loads through a small wire that is probably NOT rated to handle such current?

What could happen... well lets see-

Keep factory wiring in place but fuse your new additional wire form alt to batt-

If the fuse pops, your voltage wont spike because you still have factory connection but if a load gets presented, a very high demand, if that factory 4,6 or 8awg wire isn't capable of handling the current the alt is about to send out to run this very high demand, it will burn up or catch the wire on fire... Why? because you have allowed the larger wire, the wire that should do most the current transfer get terminated because a fuse is on there and if it pops, that's bad bad bad again.

As few posts as this man has, He makes SENSE!

WINNAR.

 

[01 S 10 10+ year member]

i didnt fuse mine, but if the wire was running in a weird place/next to something hot/looks like it can f-up then i might fuse it, but if was out in the open (alt on top of engine) then you should be ok not fusing it.

...mine didnt come fused from the factory.

 

[x2o 10+ year member]

i didnt fuse mine, but if the wire was running in a weird place/next to something hot/looks like it can f-up then i might fuse it, but if was out in the open (alt on top of engine) then you should be ok not fusing it.
...mine didnt come fused from the factory.

My alt was under the engine, but it had plenty of cool space to run without hitting anything hot so yeah, didn't see a problem. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[shizzzon 10+ year member]

hehe, don't run it next to anything hot...

IF you fear heat that much, purchase some heat resistant flexible conduit from Alflex\Southwire.

 

[romans535 10+ year member]

the regulator cannot work effectively without a battery connection.
No one here in this thread has never heard how bad it is to remove the alt power line from the batt while the car is on?

It's time to do research guys...

Also, when doing the Big 3... if you leave the factory wire in tact which is what you are suppose to do anyway and, in addition, add a larger AWG wire from alt to batt, if you fuse that, how in the hell is a HO alt going to "safely" send high current loads through a small wire that is probably NOT rated to handle such current?

What could happen... well lets see-

Keep factory wiring in place but fuse your new additional wire form alt to batt-

If the fuse pops, your voltage wont spike because you still have factory connection but if a load gets presented, a very high demand, if that factory 4,6 or 8awg wire isn't capable of handling the current the alt is about to send out to run this very high demand, it will burn up or catch the wire on fire... Why? because you have allowed the larger wire, the wire that should do most the current transfer get terminated because a fuse is on there and if it pops, that's bad bad bad again.

Great info. My alt wire was left alone for the fact that it was a real thick solid copper wire, after reading this thread would it be a good idea to add another 0gage wire to the alt(running about 2700wrms)

 

[joeboxer5876 10+ year member]

the regulator cannot work effectively without a battery connection.
No one here in this thread has never heard how bad it is to remove the alt power line from the batt while the car is on?

It's time to do research guys...

Also, when doing the Big 3... if you leave the factory wire in tact which is what you are suppose to do anyway and, in addition, add a larger AWG wire from alt to batt, if you fuse that, how in the hell is a HO alt going to "safely" send high current loads through a small wire that is probably NOT rated to handle such current?

What could happen... well lets see-

Keep factory wiring in place but fuse your new additional wire form alt to batt-

If the fuse pops, your voltage wont spike because you still have factory connection but if a load gets presented, a very high demand, if that factory 4,6 or 8awg wire isn't capable of handling the current the alt is about to send out to run this very high demand, it will burn up or catch the wire on fire... Why? because you have allowed the larger wire, the wire that should do most the current transfer get terminated because a fuse is on there and if it pops, that's bad bad bad again.

thats why there should be a fuse on the factory wiring. the fuse pops and no wire will burn. thats why i would fuse every wire inside of my car. for protection from the unlikley possibillity of that wire shorting. there shouldn't be any wires unfused in a car.

 

[shizzzon 10+ year member]

oh man..........................................

If you did the Big 3 AND kept the factory wiring in place, fused both the new and factory wire...

If the larger wire's fuse popped, then ALL this high current would run through this smaller wire....

If the smaller wire's fuse popped, YOU WILL likely have a voltage spike because now there is no battery present, same thing as removing the charging wire from the battery while car is running.

If you don't believe me, start your car, remove the alt's charging wire, then just drive and drive and drive.

It is possible that the voltage will spike and damage your electrical system.

I am not stating there is a 100% fact in concrete it will happen but it HAS happened, apparently so many times that it is suggested to never do it.

If you want a professional opinion, contact an alt specialist like Mechman\Powermaster\Ohio Gen and ask them or ask your dealership and see what they say and bring up what i said and see what they think of the possibility of voltage spikes happening when the alternator is removed from the battery.

I'm curious to see what they say. If they say it wont happen, please ask them why because unless there is some safety feature in these newer cars, i am not risking the entire car because of a new idea.

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

Mines fused..

 

[Bun-Bun 10+ year member]

That's pretty much what everyone does. I've never seen anyone doing the big 3 that replaced the wires, they simply add on to the existing ones.

I am removing the stock wiring...

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

I am removing the stock wiring...

why is that?

 

[jdawg 5,000+ posts]

I had a bad alt/batt last week. The alt died adn killed the batt. Thought it was just a bad batt. Put in a deka intimidator, drove FOR A WEEK AND A HALF ON BATT ALONE (im sold on Deka) as come to find out my alt was putting out one volt. So put in a new alt, with nothing hooked to the alt is was running at 36V! Hooked up the wires to batt and ground to the alt and all is good at 14.4 (maybe more now havent checked it after a day or 2 of driving to charge up the batt). So yea he is right

 

[duece212 5,000+ posts]

If the fuse pops....then who cares if the alt puts out eleventy billion volts, how will it fry your cars electronics if the power has nowhere to go (the link to the battery had the fuse popped)

 

[audioarsonal 10+ year member]

With the wire being only a foot or two long and usually 8ga from the factory I don't see any problem with it handling a spike should one happen.

 

[jco1385 5,000+ posts]

wouldnt it spike w/o the bigger wire there?