Alternator

TIMOTHY HENDERSON

MEMBER
1990 FORD E-SERIES VAN
V8
2WD
AUTOMATIC
65,000 MILES

Replacing alternator, and changing connector as recommended and the stator wire pulled out of the wiring harness and appears to not have been connected to anything. The alternator is 75A internally regulated. Is the stator wire supposed to be connected to anything?

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3 Replies

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,916 POSTS

I used a 5.0L E150 for reference. The stator wire is white/black, and is not used in this application.

The bigger problem is the engineers designed this system to go together quickly on the assembly line. To speed things up, they made the high-current output wire plug in instead of bolt on solidly. They knew a plug-in connection could not handle that much current, so they thought two would. As soon as a little resistance develops in one of those connections, more of the current will go through the other one and cause it to overheat. Ford specifies to never ever remove that connector with the two output wires as it will degrade the strength and tightness of the connector terminals. Replacement generators are supposed to come with a new plug already installed, and you are to splice and solder the wires to the vehicle's wiring harness. Failure to do this is less of a problem when the vehicle does not have a lot of add-on accessories and the heater fan is not used on the higher speeds often.