Delcotron Dash Light Relay Wiring

[onefish]

I am in the process of installing a 1963 alternator on my 1962 F-85. I have the new alternator mounted to the original ’63 bracket that I found in the classifieds. Thanks. I was wanting to wire it per the 1963 service manual and I saw the relay that the ’62 did not have. I now have a DELCOTRON WARNING LIGHT RELAY #1115823 that I believe is the correct one for this application. The only trouble I have is I don’t know which terminal is which on the relay. They are just numbered 1-4. Does anyone have a relay that they could determine which colors go to which terminal?

[62oldsf85]

I can’t answer your question, but I’m doing the same switch myself, likely next week. Question – does this conversion require a different belt than when you use the generator, and if so, which one? Also, I read in the manual that you have to remove the oil filter housing to install. Did you have to do that? Many thanks if you can answer these. Any other tips?

[onefish]

Well if you have the radiator and front end out of the way it is no problem. I don’t think that you would need to remove the oil filter housing. You need to take off two of the bolts at the water pump to mount the bracket but that is about it. As far as I can tell the belt looks like it will work however it could be a tad shorter. There is a lot of adjustment room on the bracket. I have found that the alternator regulator does not fit on the existing regulator mount and I still need to find a place to mount the relay when I find out how to wire it. By the time it is all said and done I will probably have spent just as much as if I bought a powermaster powergen and left it looking like a generator. I figure in the long run the alternator will be cheaper to maintain.

[62oldsf85]

Mine’s all together, so I don’t have the front end off (though I wish I thought of doing this when I did…

[62oldsf85]

i completed the conversion from a 62 generator to a 63 delcotron alternator. :whistle: I must say that this was, in total, a very difficult way to do things. Removing the generator was no big deal, other than the fact that it’s heavy, and it definitely helped to have it up on a lift and a friend to hold it up while I removed the bolts. I installed it originally on the ground in a parking lot, so it was a lot easier this way!

Installing the delcotron also was not a big deal. In the manual it said I would need to remove the oil filter to install the alternator bracket, but I didn’t have to do that. It’s just a matter of pulling two small water pump bolts and reinstallling them to attach the bracket – way easier than installing the heavy generator. Beware, it does require a slightly smaller belt so that you have some room for adjustment when the belt stretches.

Installing the voltage regulator (NAPA part # ) required modifying the mounting bracket to fit the new regulator. Using the delcotron means using a 4 prong regulator (rather than the 3 prong for the generator). I originally ordered one from USA Auto Parts but it looked awful straight aftermarket ugly and it didn’t work, not sure whether it was defective or whether we fried it. More on that…now.

The delcotron is a two wire, external alternator. What i was trying to do was to keep it as close to stock looking as possible as my Jetfire engine is a 63 in my 62 sports convertible. The problem was that my car is wired for a generator, so we were very perplexed trying to make sense of how to connect the existing wiring and make it work with the alternator, idiot dash light, and voltage regulator. We were basically going back and forth between the wiring diagrams for the 62 generator and the 63 alternator. In trying different combinations, we couldn’t get the charging system to work…after quite a few hours we decided to give up for the night.

Then someone got the bright idea to type in “two wire alternator conversion from generator” and up pops an article from a guy who did it on a 50’s Buick. Bingo. More later on his suggesttions, which worked flawlessly.

[jensenracing77]

what is better about converting to the alternator? is the generator something i will have issues with? i took mine apart and looked good. the brushes looked good also. just wondering? i would like to keep my car original but if this is a common issue i may reconsider. we will be taking it on mountain trips now and then and sure don’t need to be stranded somewhere.

sorry for hijacking the thread.

[62oldsf85]

As far as I know, you just get more consistent power and charging. I ran my car (and I drive it, a lot) for 11 years with a generator. It’s not necessary to replace it with the alternator, but I have some power needs (I run 5 gauges and want to wire in a modern internals/stock externals speaker and radio) that I’d like to use in the car. My experience (and my generator was fine), was that at night under the power load of lights and gauges, the lights would dim when I sat at idle, and I would consistently get about 10.5-12 volts on my voltmeter. There is a service that I read about where they can put modern, one wire, alternator components inside your generator housing for a stock look with modern performance, but again, all of this is unncessary if you’re happy with the way your generator performs.

[62oldsf85]

So…a little more about this conversion. Napa sells two necessary harnesses if yours are missing. The one from the alternator and the one from the voltage regulator. The only glitch we encountered with these is that the two wire alternator harness had the blue field wire and the black ground wire reversed in the little plastic plug, so we switched these prior to installation so that we could keep the colors making sense. Essentially, we then wired blue voltage reg. wire to the blue field wire on the gen, black ground wire to the black ground on the gen. Red power wire to the ignition to acuate the red “GEN” idiot light on the dash (we used a 10 ceramic resistor in between at the suggestion of the blog we read), and brown to existing brown wire. I learned how to solder and use shrink wrap well! It works great. Consistent 13.5-14.5 Voltage while running. I also found a product you can get at any parts store called “liquid electrical tape” that brushes on and forms a soft barrier around the soldered joint in case you forgot the shrink wrap or didn’t want to damage the joint by twisting tape around it. It works very well.

[62oldsf85]

Oh, and I did end up going with a Napa 7425 alternator belt (1/2 inch shorter) over the 7430 that I used with the generator so that there would be room for adjustment on the bracket.

[Author]

Posts