The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Altinator

The wire harness I put in has a wire for an altinator. If I put one on my truck do I only hook that wire up and tape off the other two?
The reason I am asking is that I put a 235 in and I am going to put an electric fan on the radator. My friend tells me that I will need to put an altinater on to run it . Hew says a genorator won't keep things charged.

Bart

Educate yourself at MadElectrical.com -- that link takes you to his tutorial about alternators.

If you're putting an electric fan in, you'll want to do what I did:
[b]Wiring An Electric Fan with 2 Relays[/b]

I think your friend is full of prunes.

In reference to your wiring question, it depends on the alternator. Some have internal regulators and use 1 wire, others 3 wires. Others have external regulators and wire to them.

I agree with Cletis,your friend dont know too much.A generator will work just fine.

Thank you. I think I'll keep my genorator.

Still not a bad idea to use a relay to run the fan.

But you don't need two of them if you can locate a single 60 or 80 amp relay. The common 30 amp relays might not be big enough.

The thing about using 2 relays is, if your fan turns on and off a lot the relays can wear out or burn out faster, with 2, they last longer ... don't heat up as much.

See MadElectrical.com\'s explanation ... scroll down to ELECTRIC RADIATOR FAN SYSTEMS.

I run an electric fan on my 261. It draws 14 amps. I have it running off a thermostatic relay, wired directly to the ignition switch. I don't see the need for another relay, most of the current is drawn when the fan starts, which is provided by the thermostat. I have been running it that way for 2 years and haven't noticed any problem with the ignition switch.

Your generator is probably a 30 amp unit, which means that after running the fan (15 amps), the headlights (10 amps for 2 60W bulbs),and the ignition (5 amps), you have nothing left for the heater fan or the radio or charging the battery. If you are going to an electric fan you will want at least a 63 amp alternator.

I have an old 12 volt genorator from a sixtys grane truck. I don't know how many amps it puts out. I bought an electric fan wireing kit that has a relay and a thermostat. The thermostat is threaded and I don't know what it is supose to thred into. I'll get it all figured out though. I am thankful that you all are here to ask questions of. That link to the alternator site was very helpful.

Bart

Bart, the sensor needs to go into water on your engine. I think a thermostat cover for small block V-8's fit the 235 six. Get one of those with the pipe threads in hole on side, which is for sensors and such on later year vehicles, from 70's and up. Seems like my Auto Zone has those in Chrome section hop-up stuff. Otherwise, you may have to put a tee in the heater hose somewhere, come off of it. It won't be so direct to heat though, and maybe not so good when not running heater in summer?

I think I may move this post to the electrical bay -- not because I'm mad or it doesn't belong or any of that mickey mouse stuff, but because we have the foremost authority of antique vehicle electrical systems right here in the Stovebolt Page running that forum (Randy Rundle) and you stand a much better shot at getting the straight skinny right from the man himself if we pout it there. (Wow, that's got to be one of the longest sentences I've ever written...)

Ask Randy. In addition to what looks like a lot of good gouge already given here, Randy can either confirm or deny any of it.

Thanks for using the Stovebolt Page!

V/R
John

Thank you for your help. I couldn't reply because my dial up wasn't working very well.

You actually want the temperature sensor in the radiator side of the thermostat. Otherwise the fan will be on most of the time. With it in the block the thermostat will keep the block temperature regulated pretty well until it starts to overheat. If you put it in the radiator or on the downstream side of the thermostat the fan will only kick on when the water in the radiator gets hot, so it will cycle better. This is the way my BMW is built.

The fan thermostatic relay I have is an all in 1 unit with an adjustment screw on the side and a thermocouple that you attach halfway down the radiator. The fan shuts off at highway speeds when the air flow is enough to keep the radiator cool, and kicks back on at low speeds or stopped when the radiator heats back up. It saves wear on the fan over just having the thing run when the block temp is over 180 degrees.

I found the thermostat houding with the extra hole for a thermostat. The hole is on the top so it would be on the radiator side. Thanks,

Bart