impaled

in the pic, the orange wire (orange line and text inserted with it) comes somewhere from the harness and attaches there. the car's wiring has been butchered in a bad way by the previous idiots...

the black wire runs about two inches from that point to the positive terminal on the alt (IIRC it was a different color, but it was in bad shape and i had a little bit of black wire left over and replaced it). why would the wire run from the spade terminal right to the alt positive post?

it doesnt make sense and it doesnt follow any wiring diagrams that i have come accross.

the reason why i bring this up is that there is a relatively bad parasitic battery drain with the battery terminals hooked up.

any ideas???





background. was 305 TPI swapped to carbed 350 SBC, and the alt [which i replaced a while back and bench tested fine] is 305 specific NOT for the 350, even though they have the same connections it has a higher amperage. the alt is a stock advance auto remanufactured unit.

impaled

24 hour bump because i need to get her on the road. i am having issues with my daily driver.

Fullsizewagon

The short jumper wire is the voltage sense wire. Imho it should/could be run all the way to the battery in order for it to do something useful.
The orange wire should come from an ignition source (hot in run). If it's always hot it will drain the battery. Test with a test lamp, and try to disconnect wires at the alt to see if that's where the draw is.

impaled

what is an example of a "hot in run" wire i could run her to? i will definitely test with some form of lamp.

impaled

the wire is only hot when the keys are in at the accessory position. and had no power without the keys. so thats not the wire.

Supervisor42

If you unplug both wires, does the voltage drain go away?
They may be reversed. That is an old 70's-80's delco S1 alternator. It needs a bulb or resistor in the exciter circuit to work (can't just wire it to ign+).
And 'wagon is right, the feedback wire needs to be at the starter or battery to do it's "job". Connecting it to the Alt+ is "rigging it".

impaled

i will run that wire tomorrow, i know that the car has been improperly wired and i will try to unplug both and/or reverse the termanals.

BASSETT IROC 85

iTrader: (2)

You can buy a new plug at most parts stores in the help section. Like stated above one wire hot all the time and one hot with the switch on.

Fullsizewagon

Yes, get a new plug, or at least insulate those bare connectors. If the sense wire touches ground it will burn (or fry a fusible link).
Actually, the sense wire is usually "jury rigged" from the factory - so you can leave it like that for the time being but think of it as an upgrade.
The original exiter wire is brown, and should not be hot in acc.. You'll find wiring diagrams for your Camaro here: http://www.geocities.com/vtcamaro/Wire-Diagrams.html