Alternator blowing fuse

[Ozzie831]

Thanks for taking the time to check out my post. 

 

For starters I did the fusible link upgrade and alternator upgrade from http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/ about a year ago. At the time the car ran pretty bad because the turbo install added a bunch of extra electronics and the alternator I was using wasnt supplying enough juice to run everything that I had installed and it was wreaking havoc.

 

I just recently purchased a 140amp alternator from Zspecialties and its blowing my 80amp fuse. The fuse does not instantaneous blow when I turn the car on. It only happens when I am driving/revving the engine. Ive let the car running for half an hour in the driveway and nothing happened but when I drove it less than 2 miles it would blow. Ive even gotten it to blow by revving it in the driveway.

 

Out of all my driving tests, Ive never gotten more than 5 minutes from my house before the fuse blew. Every time I drove the car, the volt gauge in the dash would sit a little past the 16V mark under acceleration and 14ish when stopped at a stop light. I noticed when the fuse blew, it would jump to where the little red LED is then go back the the 16V. (I only have 2 wires to the alternator, the battery power and the ground. I dont really know how my gauge is operating since its not even plugged in...)

 

I hooked up a volt meter to the battery and let it sit in the driveway. The volts were at 13.8-14.4 during idle and revving. So I went and revved it for a bit and when it blew there were no spikes on the Volt meter it just stayed at the 13.8-14.4 range; however, the dash gauge still spiked. I checked the wiring and I didnt notice any shorts or anything that looked bad, unplugged, or out of place.

 

The reason I purchased the new alternator was because I thought my last one failed (it was a Nissan Maxima alternator from Oreillys). After I purchased the Zspecialties alternator, I went and unhooked my old alternator (in preperation for the new one) and learned that my white and red power wire had eroded to the point of cutting itself in half. So I replaced all the old white and red striped wires with new 10 gauge wire.

 

One thing that keeps creeping into my mind is that maybe when I updated the wiring, I maybe swapped around the 4 wires at the MAXI Fuse block. Im pretty sure I didnt but that is the only thing that I can think of. 

 

Any thoughts and suggestions are appreciated

Austin 

Edited August 6, 2015 by Ozzie831

[NewZed]

 I dont really know how my gauge is operating since its not even plugged in...)

 

 learned that my white and red power wire had eroded to the point of cutting itself in half. So I replaced all the old white and red striped wires with new 10 gauge wire.

 

One thing that keeps creeping into my mind is that maybe when I updated the wiring, I maybe swapped around the 4 wires at the MAXI Fuse block. Im pretty sure I didnt but that is the only thing that I can think of. 

Start with the basics - the gauge can not show anything if it's not connected.  But it does show something, therefore it is connected.  Either disconnect it, or connect it properly.

 

Then go to work on the only other thing you can think of.  Fix those wires you're not sure about.

 

You don't even know which wires are connected to what, so no one can give you much advice.