CS144 Alternator upgrade -- Brown wire indicator question

[Russell]

Hey guys!

I'm putting a CS144 (or whatever the 105 amp TBI alternator is) into my 77 chevy half ton, cause I killed the last one leaving my lights on all night, lol (the truck has a 1500 amp battery in it, It fired up just fine, but the strain on the alternator to re-charge it was too big, and I burnt a diode out)

The alternator is already mounted, and the big power wire is already run, but I've got two questions.

First, the red wire excitatory wire. Does a guy need to run that wire to a hot all the time source, or an ignition source? For some reason it strikes me as I gotta have that one under an ignition source so the alternator won't wear the battery down.

Second, the brown indicator light wire. I am told that a guy can put a 75 ohm 3 watt resistor between wherever that brown wire goes, and the alternator. However, I cannot find a 75 ohm 3 watt resistor anywhere, so I want to run the brown wire to an idiot light in my dash instead (just make it turn the choke light on). How exactly does this light work? Does the cluster provide ground or hot?

Thanks!

Russ

 

[afroman006]

Just hook it up to the factory wires. They are the same color, you just need to change pigtail ends. The brown wire is slightly smaller on the new pigtail but its no big deal.

 

[mofugly13]

Yup, I thinjk that because you have the idiot light, you don't need the resistor. The resistor takes the place of the idiot light when your guage cluster has an ammmeter or voltmeter, and no idjit light. There is a good writeup on, I think, http://www.novaresource.org/alternator.htm

 

[Russell]

The cluster doesn't have an idiot light right now, but that site is very helpful, thanks!