Expert: Kevin Pilotte - 9/1/2009

Question
Hi again.  I had my motorola alternator rebuilt.  I took a picture of the 4 wire connections and believe it or not my puppy ate my SD card(long story).  I went ahead and reinstalled the alternator and connected the wires back as i thought they had been.  When I went to reconnect the negative battery terminal I had way more sparking than I expected.  Looked at the alernator again then realized I had the red and orange wires reversed(the colors were almost identical after all these years).  I corrected the connections to the alternator still not totally sure that the orange and black are connected to the right posts(red is on the isolation diode and the green is easy since it's a spade connection) but the battery sparking problem was resolved.  I opened the door and noticed the back interior light was on, tried to start it up and had a little sound then nothing. Now there are no lights, no power at all. The battery is new and I checked it with the voltmeter, it read over 12.5.  It was late and I gave up.  I'm going to try and boost it today or do you have any other ideas?  Thanks again.

Answer
It's possible that you shorted the diode trio in the alternator when you connected the battery.
Remove the alternator and bring it to your local parts store. They can mount it in a tester and see if it is operating properly.
Then, make sure the wiring is correct on the back when you reinstall it BEFORE connecting the battery.
Let me know if you need the wiring hook up.