If one Googles, "3G alternator upgrade", the results can be a little overwhelming in their amount of variance from application to application.
Accordingly, I've decided to do a little write-up about (in my opinion) the best avenue to take for this upgrade in these applications: 79-85 Ford Panther Platform cars, 302 engine, carb or CFI, with ~60A 1G alternator (external regulator).
Probably same for 100A 1G also, but two "unknowns" for me to confirm that: 1) if equipped with heated windshield, how to integrate it and 2) physical dimensions of 100A vs 60A alternators. Electrically it should be the same if you disregard the heated windshield. I'm not sure "how different" the harness is in a SEFI car with a 100A 1G so I'm not talking about them here, but I'm sure the process is adaptable.
Hop on RockAuto or your preferred parts vendor and obtain a 6K507, or K060507 belt. You will likely find it is required.
Head to your local U-Pull and get the following items:
130A 3G and 60A 1G side-by-side:
Then, visit your local car audio supplier (or hop on eBay, Amazon or whatever) and buy either a manual-reset circuit breaker, or a fuse holder and fuse, rated somewhere in the 150-200A range. Ford used a 175A fuse with these alternators in the Taurus so it's a smart choice to do the same. If you buy a mini-ANL fuse holder, you can even use the junkyard cars fuse too. Why the fuse? The charge cable is a decently heavy gauge wire and it has full battery voltage on it 24/7. The alternator could internally fail and dead short battery positive to ground. This could cause a fire or explosion. Similarly, if the wire became damaged or detached from the alternator, if it touched ground the spark could be large enough to weld the cable on and create the same scenario.
Long story short: protect this circuit if you value your car, stuff near your car, and your safety.
You will also need a nut and bolt with washers to secure the upper ear of the alternator. The original Panther alternator has a threaded upper hole, the 3Gs do not as the bolt goes through completely. Not a big deal but something to be aware of. I recommend a nice big fender washer with the bolt going in through the front, split lock on the back where the nut is.
With the above on-hand, you can get to work.
Sometimes (?) Required: Clearance work on the alternator bracket
Mock up the 3G in the mounting spot of the 1G and determine if the bracket is interfering with the alternator. On my '91 and '84, I had to do this. On my '83 I did not. The bracket is subtly different. You may need to hit the bottom-facing edge of the bracket with a grinder to allow the alternator ear to come up snug against the bracket. Only you can see how much is required when you do this, but just be aware you may have to do it.
Sometimes Required: Swap pulley
While doing the above mock-up, observe that your stock belt no longer fits. Even if you swap the pulley, it still won't fit, because the 3G will not "lean over" as much as the 1G did so you can't get the stock belt around the pulley.
Using an impact gun and a strap wrench you can remove and replace the pulleys of the alternators. The threads are normal (lefty-loosey, righty-tighty). You may find that the 6K507 belt will slip onto the Taurus pulley as-is, with a little fighting, so no pulley swap is required. If you just can't make it happen (perhaps due to tolerance in belt lengths) you should swap the pulley and you'll find it a lot easier to work with, but the alternator will need to be closer to the end of the bracket for the belt to be tight enough.
Remove the Harness
In Panthers, there is a detachable "sub-harness" which runs across the front/top of the engine. Looking at the front of the car, it begins at the left from the starter relay where two wires are joined together to one fuse link. The thicker wire is the alternator output wire and the smaller wire is a voltage sense wire used by the voltage regulator.
Rather than explain this harness in extensive detail I'll just show these pictures.
'84 Lincoln Town Car (EEC-IV CFI) stock configuration:
'84 Lincoln Town Car (EEC-IV CFI) modified (1G removed):
'83 Grand Marquis (Carb with Duraspark) stock configuration:
'83 Grand Marquis (Carb with Duraspark) modified (1G removed):
You need to fish out that entire "sub-harness". Disconnect the battery first. Remove the harness left-to-right or right-to-left, it's about the same either way. There are no particular instructions for this, it just unplugs off of everything in a pretty straightforward way, except the alternator output stud which has a nut (I've seen 7/16 and 10mm) on it. When the harness reaches the driver side fender, it "Tees", some wires going up towards the firewall and some towards the header panel. Carbureted cars have the Duraspark module and the external voltage regulator towards the front, CFI cars will only have the voltage regulator. Remove the voltage regulator from the car with the harness. You won't be reusing it.
Harness Alterations
Spread the harness out over a nice wide surface, such as the trunklid of that parts car you've been meaning to scrap. Using a utility knife in key spots and unwrapping with your fingers, carefully remove all the wrapping from the harness. You may wish to add little bands of tape where each "pigtail" branches off to keep it organized but if you do, you'll just be cutting those bands of tape in a moment anyway.
What you're doing with the external regulator wires:
With this done, you can now remove the yellow voltage sensing wire that runs across the whole harness, and take with it the regulator connector, regulator, and the two wires that went from it to the alternator. Put this in your box of "random wire for future projects" because you're done with it here.
To this point, you have achieved "removing the 1G". Congratulations, your car doesn't have an alternator anymore. Let's fix that.
The 3G Regulator Pigtail you snipped in the junkyard:
Make sure you neatly wrap up the harness when finished with your alterations.
With the above done you can reinstall the harness in the car with the alternator.
Note that in one case I had to use a drill to clean up a bit of a lip on the lower mounting ear of the 3G alternator that prevented the original Panther bolt from going through it. The hole in the alternator is big enough but the mount on the Taurus "squishes" the ear on the alternator, which somewhat caves in the aluminum by the bolt hole. If the bolt won't fit through, try slightly widening it out a bit with a drill.
Charging Cable
Pretty straightforward. Take your homemade, or junkyard Taurus charge cable and give it a path across the engine bay. I like to put them in split loom and attach with zip ties at two points, one at the alternator bracket, and the other on the A/C compressor bracket. This gives the cable lots of surrounding air for its whole path over which reduces the risk of melting or chafing through and shorting out.
Fuse
You have some flexibility for how to do this and will need to judge accordingly. Snip the Taurus charge wire once you get to the passenger fender liner as you'll be mounting your fuse holder or circuit breaker somewhere over here.
Shorten the remainder of the part of the charge cable you just cut off appropriately, use an angle grinder or similar to round off the square terminal on the end, and attach it from the fuse holder to the constant hot stud of the starter relay. Following the routing I've suggested and as shown, I still had over a foot of extra wire I had cut out, so you have plenty of flexibility.
Recommended: Ground Wire
You have significantly increased your vehicle's electrical supply. It only makes sense to improve the reliability and capacity of the ground wire as well. You can buy a pre-made thicker (e.g. 4AWG) battery terminal cable and install it with ease.
Keep in mind there's a dedicated ground wire for the ECM (where applicable) and you'll want to find a way to put that back on the negative battery post (ring terminal on the bolt of your new battery cable should do it).
Tada, you're done!
Accordingly, I've decided to do a little write-up about (in my opinion) the best avenue to take for this upgrade in these applications: 79-85 Ford Panther Platform cars, 302 engine, carb or CFI, with ~60A 1G alternator (external regulator).
Probably same for 100A 1G also, but two "unknowns" for me to confirm that: 1) if equipped with heated windshield, how to integrate it and 2) physical dimensions of 100A vs 60A alternators. Electrically it should be the same if you disregard the heated windshield. I'm not sure "how different" the harness is in a SEFI car with a 100A 1G so I'm not talking about them here, but I'm sure the process is adaptable.
Hop on RockAuto or your preferred parts vendor and obtain a 6K507, or K060507 belt. You will likely find it is required.
Head to your local U-Pull and get the following items:
- Alternator: my preferred go-to vehicle is a 93-99 Taurus/Sable 3.0 OHV ("3.0" is clearly visible on the valve cover at a glance). 1992 uses the wider mounting ears and won't work with your existing bracket. 2000 was a facelift year so you can avoid them easily, they use a 6G alternator instead.
- Regulator pigtail from same car as alternator. Get as much wire length as you can before you snip it, you'll appreciate this later.
- Charge cable, if you don't care to make your own: 00-07 Taurus/Sable with 3.0 OHV. The cable is very easy to extract out of these cars with minimal effort. You will need a utility knife to cut some tape and loom, and also a basic socket set (sorry, forget the sizes needed) to undo some of the plastic junk. The cable runs from alternator, to rad support, across through some loom and plastic tunnelling, to the side of the fuse box where the end forms one of the terminals for the 175A mini-ANL fuse.
130A 3G and 60A 1G side-by-side:
Then, visit your local car audio supplier (or hop on eBay, Amazon or whatever) and buy either a manual-reset circuit breaker, or a fuse holder and fuse, rated somewhere in the 150-200A range. Ford used a 175A fuse with these alternators in the Taurus so it's a smart choice to do the same. If you buy a mini-ANL fuse holder, you can even use the junkyard cars fuse too. Why the fuse? The charge cable is a decently heavy gauge wire and it has full battery voltage on it 24/7. The alternator could internally fail and dead short battery positive to ground. This could cause a fire or explosion. Similarly, if the wire became damaged or detached from the alternator, if it touched ground the spark could be large enough to weld the cable on and create the same scenario.
Long story short: protect this circuit if you value your car, stuff near your car, and your safety.
You will also need a nut and bolt with washers to secure the upper ear of the alternator. The original Panther alternator has a threaded upper hole, the 3Gs do not as the bolt goes through completely. Not a big deal but something to be aware of. I recommend a nice big fender washer with the bolt going in through the front, split lock on the back where the nut is.
With the above on-hand, you can get to work.
Sometimes (?) Required: Clearance work on the alternator bracket
Mock up the 3G in the mounting spot of the 1G and determine if the bracket is interfering with the alternator. On my '91 and '84, I had to do this. On my '83 I did not. The bracket is subtly different. You may need to hit the bottom-facing edge of the bracket with a grinder to allow the alternator ear to come up snug against the bracket. Only you can see how much is required when you do this, but just be aware you may have to do it.
Sometimes Required: Swap pulley
While doing the above mock-up, observe that your stock belt no longer fits. Even if you swap the pulley, it still won't fit, because the 3G will not "lean over" as much as the 1G did so you can't get the stock belt around the pulley.
Using an impact gun and a strap wrench you can remove and replace the pulleys of the alternators. The threads are normal (lefty-loosey, righty-tighty). You may find that the 6K507 belt will slip onto the Taurus pulley as-is, with a little fighting, so no pulley swap is required. If you just can't make it happen (perhaps due to tolerance in belt lengths) you should swap the pulley and you'll find it a lot easier to work with, but the alternator will need to be closer to the end of the bracket for the belt to be tight enough.
Remove the Harness
In Panthers, there is a detachable "sub-harness" which runs across the front/top of the engine. Looking at the front of the car, it begins at the left from the starter relay where two wires are joined together to one fuse link. The thicker wire is the alternator output wire and the smaller wire is a voltage sense wire used by the voltage regulator.
Rather than explain this harness in extensive detail I'll just show these pictures.
'84 Lincoln Town Car (EEC-IV CFI) stock configuration:
'84 Lincoln Town Car (EEC-IV CFI) modified (1G removed):
'83 Grand Marquis (Carb with Duraspark) stock configuration:
'83 Grand Marquis (Carb with Duraspark) modified (1G removed):
You need to fish out that entire "sub-harness". Disconnect the battery first. Remove the harness left-to-right or right-to-left, it's about the same either way. There are no particular instructions for this, it just unplugs off of everything in a pretty straightforward way, except the alternator output stud which has a nut (I've seen 7/16 and 10mm) on it. When the harness reaches the driver side fender, it "Tees", some wires going up towards the firewall and some towards the header panel. Carbureted cars have the Duraspark module and the external voltage regulator towards the front, CFI cars will only have the voltage regulator. Remove the voltage regulator from the car with the harness. You won't be reusing it.
Harness Alterations
Spread the harness out over a nice wide surface, such as the trunklid of that parts car you've been meaning to scrap. Using a utility knife in key spots and unwrapping with your fingers, carefully remove all the wrapping from the harness. You may wish to add little bands of tape where each "pigtail" branches off to keep it organized but if you do, you'll just be cutting those bands of tape in a moment anyway.
What you're doing with the external regulator wires:
- At the regulator pigtail, snip the green wire. This wire runs up into the dash to the alternator light and provides the "excite" function and will be kept; you are going to extend it and connect it to the pigtail for your new alternator.
- There are two push-on terminals for the back of the alternator (stator and field if I'm not mistaken). These run to the regulator connector, pull them out of the harness. You will not be reusing them; their function is internal within the 3G.
- Optional, snip the wire to the terminal for the noise capacitor, and relocate this but keep it in the picture, otherwise you may hear some electrical noise on your radio.
With this done, you can now remove the yellow voltage sensing wire that runs across the whole harness, and take with it the regulator connector, regulator, and the two wires that went from it to the alternator. Put this in your box of "random wire for future projects" because you're done with it here.
To this point, you have achieved "removing the 1G". Congratulations, your car doesn't have an alternator anymore. Let's fix that.
The 3G Regulator Pigtail you snipped in the junkyard:
- Green wire: this must connect to the (usually) green wire you snipped that used to go to the external regulator. Solder an extension on if required, or if you got enough wire on your junkyard pigtail, attach the green wire of the 3G regulator connector to the wire going into the dash. This performs the "excite" function and operates your warning light.
- Stator wire (usually white):
Normally this just loops back to the one-wire connector on the alternator, but in a carb or CFI application, you need to use the stator output to provide the power for the choke cap (which should not be powered with a full 12V). Tee into this wire (snip, solder, etc, do not half-ass these connections), add a fuse, then attach the wire that goes to the choke cap. The fuse protects against a short to ground in case that wire is damaged. - Voltage sensing wire (usually yellow). You are going to loop this back to the output stud of the alternator, however, it would be wise to also incorporate the noise capacitor when doing this. You'll see in my attached photos that in one car, I didn't add the capacitor back in, and in the other, I did. In the one that I did, I fused this wire somewhat out of paranoia. It's not really required but since it's battery voltage up to the capacitor it seemed wise.
Make sure you neatly wrap up the harness when finished with your alterations.
With the above done you can reinstall the harness in the car with the alternator.
Note that in one case I had to use a drill to clean up a bit of a lip on the lower mounting ear of the 3G alternator that prevented the original Panther bolt from going through it. The hole in the alternator is big enough but the mount on the Taurus "squishes" the ear on the alternator, which somewhat caves in the aluminum by the bolt hole. If the bolt won't fit through, try slightly widening it out a bit with a drill.
Charging Cable
Pretty straightforward. Take your homemade, or junkyard Taurus charge cable and give it a path across the engine bay. I like to put them in split loom and attach with zip ties at two points, one at the alternator bracket, and the other on the A/C compressor bracket. This gives the cable lots of surrounding air for its whole path over which reduces the risk of melting or chafing through and shorting out.
Fuse
You have some flexibility for how to do this and will need to judge accordingly. Snip the Taurus charge wire once you get to the passenger fender liner as you'll be mounting your fuse holder or circuit breaker somewhere over here.
Shorten the remainder of the part of the charge cable you just cut off appropriately, use an angle grinder or similar to round off the square terminal on the end, and attach it from the fuse holder to the constant hot stud of the starter relay. Following the routing I've suggested and as shown, I still had over a foot of extra wire I had cut out, so you have plenty of flexibility.
Recommended: Ground Wire
You have significantly increased your vehicle's electrical supply. It only makes sense to improve the reliability and capacity of the ground wire as well. You can buy a pre-made thicker (e.g. 4AWG) battery terminal cable and install it with ease.
Keep in mind there's a dedicated ground wire for the ECM (where applicable) and you'll want to find a way to put that back on the negative battery post (ring terminal on the bolt of your new battery cable should do it).
Tada, you're done!
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