Installed a Delco 10si Alternator Today

Spent a good few hours installing a Delco one wire 10si alternator on my 74 cj5 with a 304 today. Had to shave an inch off the fixed mount on the Delco alt to fit the stock motorola mount. Pretty fun taking a cutoff wheel to a new alternator. Was a very tight fit with maybe a mm or 2 between the alt and oil filter. Also had to reclock the alternator from 3 to 9 o'clock. Noticed a huge difference in the charging right away. Turned on the lights, heater... pretty much everything I could think of with no dimming of anything. Could even see the dash lights much brighter. Found that my motorola alt didn't go out but that my dash dummy light for the alternator had gone bad. Couldn't find a two wire bulb holder, so, I Macgyvered the bulb housing to hold another smaller dash bulb holder and it turned out pretty slick. Lost some of that spaghetti under the hood in the process. Was well worth a few hours worth of work. Would of taken less time had it not taken so long to find the charge bulb issue!

 

Getting rid of the spaghetti is worth this modification.

 

I have one too, its one of the better upgrades! One wire or Three wire? You mention a charging light so i assume three?

 

Sorry.. meant three wire. Quick question. Would a bad dummy light cause a motorola alternator not to charge correctly?

 

Absolutely. Alternators don't hold a residual magnetism like generators. If the Motorola alt has been sitting for some time and you don't have a tickler voltage at the diode trio section, then no amount of RPM will excite the alt. However if the alternator was charging yesterday and the bulb burned out this morning, then yes the higher RPM should cause the alt to start charging due retained residual magnetism. This also applies to other alternators.

 

Is this the same principle that one wire alternators work with since it has no "turn on wire"?

 

i think they feed the excite wire internally on a one wire...

 

the one wire unit has a self exciting regulator, it is rpm sensitive. it will excite at 1,000 - 1,400 rpm. on each start up the exciting rpm must be reached then the unit will charge at a slow idle.