boiled then cooked my battery 84 2.8

[bushmonkey]

so i've bin working on my little yellow beeter for awhile now (84 with a 2.8) and i finaly figured out what i thought where all its issues and got some insurance for it. didnt take much of a drive to boil the battery and cook it bad enough that its useless.

the wiring in my truck is all messy from the previous owner and the alternator had a wire running to nowhere. so since my truck wasnt charging the battery i connected it to the thing the positive wire from the battery goes to (bad idea?) and all of a sudden the battery would charge. but then like i said my battery got fried so obviously that was a bad idea. i checked the haynes repair books dyagrams and they show 3 wires from the 84 2.8's alternator and mine has 4. so im thinking the alternator isnt ment for my truck so it wouldnt charge it or it is the right alternator and i put the wire in the wrong spot and the repair books just overlooked the 4th wire i have. or could the alternator be hooked up right and my voltage regulator is just toast as well. i really dont know. what do you all think??.

 

[MastuhWaffles]

I think its how you have it wired. You need to check every wire possible and make sure its in the right place. On my 88 F-150 I had 1 little wire out of place and boom, toast. And maybe check the solenoid as well.

 

[bushmonkey]

i've checked them a few times. of the three that were hooked up 2 went through the firewall into the cab, and one grounded out on the engine block. i wasnt in the best mood when i saw what was going on with my battery so i didnt follow the wires into the cab so i dunno, maybe i should go do that lol

 

[bushmonkey]

and btw the yellow paint on your ranger is awesome

 

[MastuhWaffles]

and btw the yellow paint on your ranger is awesome

Thanks Yellow power, but did you make sure everything was wired up correctly with the solenoid? I don't know where those wires go to but go for it. And make sure positive is going to positive and negative is going to negative, its easy to missplace them when there all jumbled. You can use different color tape to mark which ones are which.

 

[kimcrwbr1]

Is there a four wire connector on the alternator or three terminals on the back. It definately sound like it has been hacked together post some pics will help also. It should have a external voltage regulator on the driver side apron?

 

[RonD]

There should be 4 wires from the alt according to this diagram
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/EDiagrams/files/diagram_charging_1983to1985_1.JPG

And yes you should have an external voltage regulator so there will be no wire from the alt directly to the battery.
That's why the battery cooked, it was getting full alt voltage all the time, so 15+ volts

This list of wiring diagrams might help as well
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/WiringByColor.html

 

[wildbill23c]

There should be 4 wires from the alt according to this diagram
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/EDiagrams/files/diagram_charging_1983to1985_1.JPG

And yes you should have an external voltage regulator so there will be no wire from the alt directly to the battery.
That's why the battery cooked, it was getting full alt voltage all the time, so 15+ volts

This list of wiring diagrams might help as well
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/WiringByColor.html

Hmm, this is weird, does anyone know what wires on the voltage regulator go to what, my alternator has been wired to the battery for 3 months now and haven't had a problem. Before the alternator wasn't hooked up to anything. I ran a wire from the alternator to the battery and haven't had a problem, however the wiring in my 84 B2 has been hacked by the previous owner and I can't find anything direct that says what wire from the voltage regulator goes where, without the over-complex wiring diagrams. I just need to know wire 1 goes to x, wire 2 goes to xx, etc. Wiring diagrams are nice for electrical engineers but for the rest of us they are useless not to mention don't exactly name everything in English.

 

[bushmonkey]

everything seams to be hooked up at the solenoid ok. i followed the wires from the alternator through the firewall into the fuse box in the cab and everything is hooked up good but im missing a few fuses's. im kind of wondering if i can redo the wiring for the alternator so its really simple and basicly only charges the battery.

 

[wildbill23c]

What is the amp output of the alternator? Might be a high amp output alternator causing the severe overcharge. I have my alternator ran directly to my battery and it barely gets over 13 volts even on the highway at higher RPM's and that's with the lights on and heater fan running. If everything is off its still not over 14 volts.

Sounds like you have some wiring somewhere shorting things out and causing the battery to overheat and cook itself. Check the output of your alternator and see how many volts its putting out. You need over 12 volts of output in order to charge the battery, but I believe if its anymore than 15 volts its overcharging the battery.

Hard to really say what your problem could be not being able to physically look at it.

 

[bushmonkey]

not sure what the output of the alternator is. im not even sure if its built for a ranger or if the guy just through it in there because it fit lol. i do have a handheld voltage/amp meter but i have no idea how to use it.... so many damned settings i cant get it to show anything but 0 on the display.

 

[wildbill23c]

If you can post a picture of your multi-meter's settings dials or buttons I can tell you what to set it at so you can test your alternator's voltage output. If its too high it can destroy the battery, relays, cause wiring fires etc.

 

[RonD]

From the link I posted

Charging System / Power Distribution 1983 - 1985:

Black Wire - Ground
Black With Orange Stripe Wire - (Main Power) Power To (B) on Alternator (Stator And Rectifier Assembly)
Light Green With Red Stripe Wire - Voltage Regulator To Red With Light Green Wire Feeding Fuse Block And Ignition Switch
Orange With Light Blue Stripe Wire - From Alternator Field (F) To Voltage Regulator
Red With Orange Stripe Wire - To Ammeter From Black Wire With Orange Stripe
Yellow Wire - Power To Ignition Switch And Fuse Block
Yellow With Light Green Stripe Wire - To Ammeter From Black Wire With Orange Stripe
Yellow With White Dots Wire - From Black Wire With Orange Stripe To Voltage Regulator Also To Radio Noise Capacitor
White With Black Stripe Wire - Alternator (S) To Voltage Regulator And Choke Heater On 2.0 Liters

This is assuming you have a stock alternator for that year, with external voltage regulator.

Over time people often switch to an Alt with built-in regulator, these can be hooked directly to the battery at the starter solenoid, a fusable link should be used.

These alternators usually have a jumper wire on the back
Example of wiring
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/EDiagrams/files/Diagram_charging_1991_1.JPG


If you are getting less than 13.6v from an alternator with engine running(idle) and all lights and heater fan on then 1 or 2 of the fields in the alt may be dead.
An Alt has 3 fields that produce AC power, it is changed to DC by diodes, a field or its diodes can fail, this means the alt can not produce it's full voltage.

 

[wildbill23c]

I know there's a wire that's been cut off the external voltage regulator on my bronco 2, maybe that's the one that should have been connected to the battery, however its been working like I hooked it up for well since November so I guess I'll leave well enough alone. Eventually I'd like to switch to the internal regulated alternator though that's for sure. Definitely need to look into some sort of protection though as it is wired directly from the back of the alternator direct to the battery, before how it was hooked up with whatever wires were on it, the battery was being drained as it wouldn't charge at all.

I really wish people that didn't have any mechanical skills would leave stuff alone, it makes it a pain in the ass for anyone else that works on the vehicle down the road.

If I could understand wiring diagrams better, I could probably make more sense out of the jumbled up wiring but the diagrams just give me a headache, doesn't help that they're all black and white either. It almost looks like there's parts of 2 wiring harnesses in my bronco 2.

That could be another issue with the O.P. Make sure your wiring harness is hooked up the right way, if not you could be sending power to things the wrong way, or powering things twice, and thus cooking your battery. I know my harness has 2 sets of connectors for the carburetor. Oh, the headaches I have from this mess. Makes me want to rip out all the wiring and redo it all.

 

[bushmonkey]

working on uploading a pic now.