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Alt. conversion disaster!

L

labman98

Member
Hello,
I friend of mine had just converted his 400 to a alternator from the generator. After he followed the diagram below the alternator had started smoking very badly. Would it make a difference if the tractor was wired as positive ground and he wired it as shown?
 
Sorry, the diagram did not show. I will try but any ideas on the positive ground vs. negative ground?
 
Makes a big difference as you found out when you saw the smoke. Most alternators are for NEGATIVE ground.
Alternator is probably toast.

Leece-Neville and others used to make alternators for big trucks that could be hooked up either pos or neg ground. Don't think you want to go there.
 
The magic smoke is hard to put back in those, so it's probably done for.

I'd suggest starting over with another alternator since you can get a used one cheaper than you can rebuild the burnt one. Be sure that connections are right and polarity is correct before intalling the replacement alternator.

To make the setup negative ground, you literally hook the negative battery terminal to the frame/engine/transmission of the tractor. You would leave the negative terminal bare until you've checked everything else a couple of times. Then connect the positive terminal to the solenoid and, finally, the negative terminal to the ground.
 
If you change it to neg ground, don't forget to swap the wires on the ammeter and make sure the coil - terminal goes to the dist.
 
99% of alternators are - ground and if hooked up + ground it will smoke it before you can take the cables loose from the battery BTDT and they smoke very fast. Only alternators I have ever seen that where + ground where made by Lucas and theres not many of those in the U.S.
Hobby farm
 
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