JAWDY,
What a tough call! Again, if the DA plug, which is 'polarized' to some extent, it only snaps in one way, fit properly, then the assumption is that you have the proper unit. Touching the power wire to either of the other wires shouldn't have been possible, and if possible, should have caused no problems.
If the wires in the engine compartment still have intact insulation and aren't burned or cooked, they sound fine. For any system to smoke so instantaneously, large amounts of current had to flow, especially if the smoke was from cooking insulation.
Something is wrong! I don't know what and it probably needs to be discovered before sacrificing another alternator. The only way the alternator could have caused this is if it had a power diode shorted to the case/ground, and when you hooked up the battery, you complete a dead short through the under-dash (ammeter?) wiring, through the power wire on the alternator to the case and then ground.
If you did some detective work, you might find a track to ground the power took through the mounting attachments.
This is all speculation, I don't know for sure. You do need to find out for sure what happened before you try it again, this circuit isn't fused and is capable of burning your Apache to the ground.
Stuart
