[DeTomaso] Alternator Options

[Charles McCall]

> >Excess alternator
> capacity is not necessarily a good thing.
And that alternator didn't work worth a damn keeping the old battery going;
I could sit at a red light at night, with the fans, headlights and A/C
running, and if I didn't keep the rpm up, eventually it would kill the
battery 
and the car would quit.   I'd then have to push it to the side of the road, 
turn everything off and wait for awhile for the battery to recover and the 
car to cool off so the fans would shut off.   Not fun!> 
>>>Very true--but more Panteras than not are running 100A alternators now, 
so I wouldn't consider that 'excess'.
> 
> >As long as your ammeter shows a positive reading, your alternator is 
> keeping
> up with the load and this is an average thing so at idle it's OK to read a
> negative as long as it reads positive with a few additional revs.
> 
SOBill or somebody with some serious electrical smarts, weigh in here and 
let me know if I'm all wet on this?
****Mike, I'm not much smarter on electrical stuff than you, but I think
you're all wet! ;-)

Logically, there may be some truth in Doug's warning - if a Pantera was
wired to handle a certain amount of current, you may find the weak link in
the system by sending more current than was designed. In our case, it may be
even worse as the wiring is old, there have been various hacks performed
over the years and a questionable splice that can handle 60a may not be able
to handle 100a. Your car may be fine, but an older harness may not handle it
either by design or by hackery. 

And I question your statement about running your battery dead in a matter of
minutes at a red light. Either your battery is completely toast or I don't
see that situation happening. If you come home and leave your lights on by
accident, how long will they continue to function before draining your
battery? IF they only last 5 minutes, then your battery is shot. I suspect
that many will last for a couple of hours at least, and while the battery is
obviously discharging it will have enough electrons left to fire your spark
plugs and keep the engine running.  I guess the thing that caught my
attention was your statement that it was possible to drain your battery to
the point where your engine won't fire in a question of a stoplight or two.
That sounds doubtful.

As a reference point (that has very little to do with the situation
described above admittedly) in 1996 I drove my old Pantera with a
non-functional alternator from South Dakota to Collector's Choice, in
Wisconsin. I didn't use the radio or AC, and avoided the headlights but I
used brake lights, turn signals, the starter, and radiator fans (passing
through Chicago) and still had enough juice to make it. If I remember
correctly, it was 3 days of driving. Disclaimer is that I pulled into Cory's
place on the last electron and the car basically died there until charging
the battery...