The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay how do i bypass my voltage regulator?

i'm sure this is pretty elementary stuff, but i'm not much of an electrician... i'm attempting to upgrade the alternator in my '66 c10 to one with a built-in regulator. so, i would like to remove the old one. any words of wisdom before i grab the clippers? thanks in advance everybody.

are you going to a one wire alt or a three wire alt?

i guess what i had was a three wire since it had the one red wire and two other leads that "plugged" into it. however, the new one just takes the red lead. that red lead runs from the battery... to the regulator, where the other two leads start. from there; all 3 of those go to the horn relay and onto the alternator. the short question is: can i run the red power lead from the battery directly to the horn relay and along to the alternator; cutting out the regulator and its two leads and have the horn and everything still work?!?

With a one-wire, you want a direct lead from alternator to battery for charging. You should probably put in a separate circuit for the horn relay and jettison the old voltage reg.

Just my opinion, mind you, I've never pulled a '66 apart. :p

hey, thanks zenish and hedgehog. hard to see the forest through the trees sometimes. its's a new purchase after a long time hunting and waiting. maybe i need to slow down and think...

What would be the correct way for a three wire alternator? I've got a 66 K10 that with this setup and a badly hacked up wiring harness. The red wire off the alternator broke in two last weekend so its time to 'restore' this part of the harness.

One wire won't charge till you rev it up some, something like 1200 rpm, but charges at idle after that. You can run the big red wire (10 gauge) to the battery plus side and some cables have a small wire sticking out to connect stuff too. OR, you can just go down to the starter cable where it hooks on the starter and use a ring end to put it on there. OR, you can take off the reg you have and connect the two red wires toghether there and that will allow your gauge (volt or amp) to work and feed other things maybe inside. With that last part, just use the same wiring as what's there for old one, just take out the regulator. This worked on my 54, should work on most, I think. OR, why not just plug all the wires back into new alt, and remove the reg outside as noted above. Saves running new wires.

on the three wire alt hook terminal 2 to the big lug on the back of the alt.take a #10 or 8 guage wire from the big lug to the plus side of the battery.hook terminal 1 to the wire from the gen light on the dash.the way i did my 64 is i unraveled the alt harness back to the old regulater which only left the gen light wire.