3g alternator swap

[Ashton_1012]

Hey everyone
for awhile ive been wanting to do the 3g swap. My 72 f250 sometimes would die if i turned the head lights on, and id have to restart the truck. very annoying! They other day i hooked up a sub, and well it fried my alternator. So i figured its finally time to do the upgrade. Went and picked up an alternator off a 91 mercury sable, my local yard did not have any taurus's. Same thing, but the sable is alot bigger.
I am just going to inform everyone of my experience, for people who have been thinking of doing the same. I am not a master mechanic, and i know hardly anything about electrical. This swap to me was fairly easy. It took me quite awhile because i wanted everything to look nice, and my wire connections to last. With a good diagram like this one: http://www.fordification.com/galleries/ ... nstall.jpg, hooking the wires up was fairly simple. Then came to mounting the new alternator. Since mine was off a sable, it could not move around closer towards the engine because a bolt would hit the head, so it made putting the belts back on a pain. Once i got past that, simple. Got everyone back together, ripped out the old voltage regulator and wiring harness, and went to start the truck. no power at all in the cab. well i did something wrong , didn't i? luckfully my good friends here at fordification have really helpful links, and i read an old post where a guy did the same thing. Here is how it was fixed; The thick yellow and black wire from the old harness needed to stay plugged in, and connected either to the battery or on the + side of the solenoid. Also i connected the green/red wire (might not have been green and red), back to the original harnesses green red. Before, i had spliced a wire into my stereos ignition wire. All you need is those two wires connected to the old harness pigtails, the rest can be cut and disposed up.
My results were great. Started right up. I can now idle with my brights on, heater full blast, cab light, flashers, and stereo with my sub very loud with no problems. Although there were some problems with hooking it up, it was mostly my fault. I recommend this swap to everyone. If not for the sake of better charging, then for the sake of gettting rid of your voltage regulator and alot of the wiring harness, simplifying things. It was well worth my money and time, with all my gas i think it cost me around 60$ for this swap, 35 for the alternator alone. Well worth it, still cheaper than buying a new alternator that is 1g.
I would like to thank everyone here, because all the old posts really helped.
now go out and swap that piece of garbage 1g!!!

[sargentrs]

Congrats and thanks for posting your experience!