Mark, if you do decide to go ahead with a ground wire to the starter
bolt mount, use the SAME gauge wire as the positive wire, and don't
ground in the present location. In other words, don't ADD another
ground path, REPLACE it. Multiple ground paths can cause some weird
problems. Could the present setup have caused (or contributed to) the
alt failure? Yes it COULD have. No way to know if it DID for sure.
If 'twere mine, I'd go ahead with the ground wire replacement, or move
the battery back up front. No way I'd leave it like it is.
If you have a good voltmeter with some long test leads, check the
voltage between the alt output and the batt + terminal. Also check
the voltage between the batt - and the starter mount bolt. That will
give you some idea of how much reistance there is in this setup.
That's how much it's costing your alt in terms of extra work is has to
do.
Mark van der Hoek
Houston
MMccaf8697@aol.com wrote:
> Hello all,
> My '67 1600 (U-20 and 5 speed) has been modified by the previous owner to
> relocate the battery to the trunk. The positive cable is 1 or 2 gage to
the
> starter and the battery is grounded via a bolt through the trunk floor to
the
> passenger side rear frame member. The starter mount bolt is then grounded
to
> the frame near the engine compartment. Before the alternator failed I was
> getting 13.2 volts across the battery terminals at 2000 rpm and only .1
amps
> output from the alternator. Off the car, the alternator tested good at 30
> amps or so at about the same voltage. I suspect that this set up does not
> properly ground the battery/charging circuit and am considering installing
a
> 4 gage cable from the battery to the starter mount bolt. Is this
reasonable?
> Recently, the alternator is only showing battery voltage (12 volts) when
> running at 2000 rpm at the "Batt" terminal., and I haven't yet tested it
off
> the car. Could the poor ground be responsible for failure of the
alternator?
> Should I try to locate the battery back to the engine compartment?
> Mark McCafferty (WyCROC)
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