MMA_Alex

I thought the alt on the 22re was a 60A?

I had a similar issue a few months after I bought the truck. I was driving back from my dads, and stopped halfway back for lunch. When I came out after lunch I started it up, and heard a very light squealing (bearing noise) for 10 seconds or so on start up. 100 miles or so later the charge & e-brake lights decided to come on. I ended up replacing it, and btw it didnt die due to load. the only load when it actually kicked the bucket was the stereo, regular 55w heatlights, and the stereo.

Greg_Canada

Wait, did you say you didnt use a relay? how did you hook up a switch?

nate V

hooked up the switch as you normally would but w/o a relay.....
power to switch power to lights ground to ground it was an illuminated switch so...
Worked great but just smoked the wiring from the bus on the switch side
Wiring is not my best field...hahahah

Greg_Canada

WOW what did you run like 10 gauge wire or something? that's a dumb thing to do, those puppies pull alot of amps and you should keep the wiring as short as possible. running a hot wire into the cab THROUGH a switch (which probably isnt rated for it) and back out, is a BIG NO NO...
just letting you know for next time, that you shouldnt do that, it's a large strain on your system and very unsafe.

nate V

So you think that when i do re-wire it that i should have the hot wires as short as possible? meaning closer to the lights and the batt than to the cab?

again..any thoughts on running a alternator from a 22re in with the 3.0. Might be a bit easier for me to get my hands on one of those than a v6 one.

MMA_Alex

hey wait. the two lights @ 55watts are gunna draw about 8A combined @ 13.8v. If you have a 10 gauge wire it'll handle it just fine for quite a long distance. More likely he's running something like 16ga wire.

the voltage drop will be pretty high (5%ish, but thats typical for automotive lights) but the ampacity of the wires would be fine either way.

the issue would be at the switch is something were to break internally you could get a pretty nasty jolt when hitting the switch. thats the idea behind a relay, low current through the switch. the length of run for the "high amperage" wires will be almost identical with the relay because most relays are mounted on the engine side of the firewall, so you're taking like 5-6 ft max out of the total circuit length, which will do almost nothing as far as voltage drop & ampacity are concerned.

oh, and any decent switch will be rated at 10A or more...

nate V

well i guess i was running like 14 gage wire standard size light wire.
If not having the relay in the circuit was not the cause of the wires burning up what do you think the cause was???

apalmer1

if you have replaced the alternator 3 times in the last few years stop wasting your money and just rebuild it yourself, then put in some beefier parts while your at it.

Jay351

Re-wire your lights, you might have a short. I was kicking myself in the head trying to figure out why my bumper lights were shorting out and not working. Wires were bunk from the factory, so I just replaced everything with 12guage wires.

I would make sure your battery cables are good and anything electrical related to the alt. If you have gone through 3 then theres somthing wrong.

nate V

I will look into a rebild kit today and let ya all know how it turns out.
Thanks for your help. Again yotatech saves the day!!!