WOULD THIS 100 amp alternator work

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I don't know which alternator your 70 Swinger uses but the alternator only puts out what the system requires. For instance, if the battery is fully charged and all accessories are off but the engine is running and the ignition is drawing 10 amps the alternator will put out 10 amps. (as a general rule). Although, do yourself a favor and if your battery is discharged, don't just jump it and rely on the alternator to recharge it. Your alternator will charge at full output and fry your amp gauge then nothing works until you replace it or temporarily by-pass it. I did that on my 66 Dart and it only has a 46 amp alternator. toolmanmike
 
My memory isn't as good as it used to be. Does your Dart have a old style points regulator or did it come from the factory with an electronic regulator?

The one shown is for the electronic regulator that has two field terminals. It could be made to work on the Dart pretty easy if it is the old style points regulator.

No matter what it had you should run a heavier gauge wire from the output of the alternator directly to the battery side of the starter relay and eliminate the ammeter in your dash as the higher output of this alternator will burn up the factory ammeter and wiring.
 
Would it work? Yes, if your running the std electronic style ignition and subsequent electronic voltage regulator...but do you need it?

If you going to spend over $100 on an alternator...get a 1 wire Tuff Stuff 100amp internally reglulated unit. Eliminate the firewall regulator...


If your going to run an regular two field alt. do you need a 100amp?. If not, just get an OEM replacement style and be done. As suggusted, make sure to bypass the amp gauge and run a 8-10guage wire and 12-14 guage fusible link from the starter relay to alt stud...and get a good voltmeter.
 
nothingbutdarts said:
My memory isn't as good as it used to be. Does your Dart have a old style points regulator or did it come from the factory with an electronic regulator?

The one shown is for the electronic regulator that has two field terminals. It could be made to work on the Dart pretty easy if it is the old style points regulator.

No matter what it had you should run a heavier gauge wire from the output of the alternator directly to the battery side of the starter relay and eliminate the ammeter in your dash as the higher output of this alternator will burn up the factory ammeter and wiring.
Click to expand...

Yep. that's what I was trying to say. Thanks
 
Thanks guys , as usual loads of good info . **** there is so much I have forgotten .
I will be switching to electronic ignition , but will stick with 60 amp alt , I f I remember my old dodge truck caught fire after I put in a high output alt , wires could not handle it , the alt gauge started smoking , shut it of and hit the bat disconnect fast .
 
jerry6 said:
Thanks guys , as usual loads of good info . **** there is so much I have forgotten .
I will be switching to electronic ignition , but will stick with 60 amp alt , I f I remember my old dodge truck caught fire after I put in a high output alt , wires could not handle it , the alt gauge started smoking , shut it of and hit the bat disconnect fast .
Click to expand...

No matter what you do I would eliminate the ammeter! My .02
 
"No matter what you do I would eliminate the ammeter! My .02 "
Really , i just bought a new circuit board for my rallye dash , what would I use in place of the ammeter ? I put 500,000 miles on my dart and 600,000 on my 1977 ramcharger 4x4 and the ammeter never gave me much trouble . Is the some big problem with them ?
 
The amp meters on the early cars are a direct feed from the charging system so everything your car is getting has to run through the amp gauge first.
It can either melt down or get carboned up and not pass enough voltage to run everything. If it melts down you in the least fry the wires and circuit boards under the dash and at the worst burn down the whole car.
If it gets carboned up the gauge stops working and things like your turn signals, radio, and ignition wont get the voltage they need to work right.
You in the least need to run the heavy jumper wire from the alt to the battery and that will take about half the load off the gauge so you don't fry it or the rest of the puny wiring these cars came with.
I converted my Dart to a true old school 100 amp cop alternator and I have never done the jumpers or anything but it will regularly completely bury the gauge and the hot wire going to it gets real warm, I can also jump start a D9 cat with it but I do need to do the bypass and other mods to safety it up sometime. I don't drive it anymore and kept an eye on the wiring and stuff when I did, but I also didn't drive it very far every day and kept the battery charged so it wasn't always dumping 100 amps or more through everything.
I did convert it all to electronic ignition and charging system and also found out that the later voltage regulators with the little hump/bump in the middle of the housing work better with the big alt, the earlier ones always had issues and tended to overcharge which is bad with over 100 amps.
If you decide to upgrade do at least the jumper and other mods, the gauge will only read about half of what the system is really putting out if you leave it hooked up.
 
The best auto electric guy around here says that 60 amps is plenty for most any car (excluding police, fire, emergency vehicles) and that the only time people have trouble is from wiring up electric cooling fans the wrong way. I put a 63 amp one on mine, close enuff.
 
So I will stick with 60 amp , run a bigger gauge wire from alt to battery , swith to electronic ignition with the better regulator . What is the trick to bypassing the ammeter , or with the heavy gauge wire alt to bat not required ?
 
I had a large stereo installed in my Dart so a big alt was nice as it kept up with the amps very well when really cranking the tunes while driving. The charging system in a Mopar is fast enough to pump out more current whenever a big bass note would hit, I could see it on my amp meter.
I also believe in if it breaks make it stronger and better, that's why I ended up with a 727 and a 8 3/4 with a power lock sure grip, car all ready had 340 suspension, I added front and rear sway bars too.
If you run a big gauge wire from the hot lead of the alt to the positive lead of the battery that will take care of most of the juice running through the dash.
We had it done with my sisters 71 Scamp when I added a cop alt to it and it's run along the fender wells and along the back of the firewall and tied up neatly so it wont fall down somewhere and melt and burn something up.
I think you could just tie both side of the alt gauge together or run a big jumper between then to get around that issue then run a volt meter somewhere if you still want to keep track. If I'm wrong on anything someone will jump in and correct me I'm sure.
 
jerry6 said:
So I will stick with 60 amp , run a bigger gauge wire from alt to battery , swith to electronic ignition with the better regulator . What is the trick to bypassing the ammeter , or with the heavy gauge wire alt to bat not required ?
Click to expand...

Run 8 or 10 gauge wire...and always us a fusible link that's 4 sizes different (12 or 14 accordingly) and put the link on the starter relay side. I bought a link w/ an eye-let on one side and hooked that to the starter relay stud, then spliced my wire to the other end of it and ran that to the alt. stud. Elec. tapped it into my existing harness and it looks good, hard to tell it's there unless you look close. I then hooked up my aftermarket voltmeter.

or...if you want a true factory look

You can drill out your bulkhead connector, do away w/ the Sta-Con connectors and replace the existing wire w/ new heavier gauge wire (if your running a bigger alt) and run it directly through the firewall (Chrysler did this on later on trucks, fleet vehicles etc w/ higher amp alt's because they knew the firewall connector was troublesome) and up to your gauge. You could then have your OEM style amp gauge converted to a voltmeter by one of the many gauge refinishing companies out there now and then you have an factory wired and factory looking gauge again but without the trouble prone connectors and amp gauge...
 
So I fond someone that restores dashes on old Mopars , here is a run down onwhat I was told , sounds good to me , let me know what you think ,

"For the 70 Rallye dash the electronic limiter is found inside of the gas gauge. Most other cars has this as a stand-alone plug in module but for this dash they built it into the fuel gauge.

All limiter both old and new style take 12 v and reduce it to 5v. The original one is electromechanical and works a bit like a 4 way flasher with a heating coil and bitmetalic strip. It is prone to failure (only a matter or when it fails, not if) and when it fails it sends a solid 12v to the gauge wires which burns one or more of them out. The electronic limiters have temperature protection and shut down if there is a problem. The only issue with a body clusters is that your metal frame has to have a good ground as electronics are sensitive to grounding problems. If assembled correctly this should not be an issue.

We replace a lot of ammeter wires when we rebuild dash harnesses. We even have two or three potmetal cluster frames where there is a half inch hole where there should be metal behind the ammeter. Ammeters can be "fireproofed"

BTW gauges run a 5v so that a low battery/bad alternator/bad voltage regulator condition doesn't cause them to misread. Makes them a bit less susceptible to error doing it this way. "

So will run 60 amp alt with above "improved dash , will add the 10g wire alt>bat and 12g alt stud to starter relay wityh fuseable links .
Sound good enough ?
Thanks and sorry for being a PIA ,but it's been a while since I worked on cars
 
Sounds like the perfect plan and if you decide to run the 100 it should be all safetied up with all the mods done. There are guides online to build your own dash voltage regulators, I built a few but they were very slow to get the gauges up to proper readings and ran hot. Pretty sure we were using too small of a 5 volt regulator chip and the newer guides tell you to use a much heavier chip and heat-sink it.
Anyways sounds like you have a plan so good luck with it when you get it all done.
 
Thanks 69Dartman , not going to build my own , the place I found warranties the work so I have confidence in them . Will let you know how it goes , should be together in 2-3 weeks .
 
It is all together and running well , have all the dash lights working for the first time , guess the old circuit board had a few worn out spots ,temp and oil press gauge now work as well .
Hard to tell if fireproofed ammeter is any better than stock , but time will tell , limiter in fuel gauge seems to be working , all lights and gauges working . So BIG thanks to all here with all the tips , and Mr Heaterbox for the renewed and improved gauges .
 
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