Alternator wiring

[Number1]

I have a 5.3 truck engine with the factory positive battery cable connected on the drivers side. Now with that cable it's connected to the alternator power stud on the back, then the cable runs to the starter like it did from the factory. I have my battery mounted in the trunk with the cable running down the passenger side and directly to the starter. Now my question is will my battery still be able to get charged since both wires meet at the starter or not?

[blitzer454]

Your description on how your battery and alternator cables are connected is very confusing. However there needs to be a cable that runs from the alternator to the battery and a cable that runs from the battery to the starter. There's a sticky in this forum on alternators that will point you to a couple of websites that do a very good job of describing how alternators work and how they should be connected. The MAD Electrical website will explain how to connect a trunk mounted battery the right way.

[TheJDMan]

I agree that you should take look at MAD Electrical. There is a LOT of very good wiring information on that site. However, I disagree that you need separate cable from the alt to the bat and alt to the starter. In point of fact I have a 6 gage wire running from the alternator to the starter solenoid and a 1/0 gage cable running from the solenoid to my trunk mounted battery. This arrangement has worked just fine keeping the battery charged for the past 4 years and 12,000 plus miles.

http://madelectrical.com/

[andrewb70]

I have a 5.3 truck engine with the factory positive battery cable connected on the drivers side. Now with that cable it's connected to the alternator power stud on the back, then the cable runs to the starter like it did from the factory. I have my battery mounted in the trunk with the cable running down the passenger side and directly to the starter. Now my question is will my battery still be able to get charged since both wires meet at the starter or not?

Yes. That is exactly how mine is wired.

Andrew

[blitzer454]

I used a separate alternator cable to realize the benefit of the voltage drop across this cable to slow charge the battery (batteries prefer slow charge over fast charge). Somewhere on MAD Electrical it explains this benefit and if I remember correctly it also specifies wire gauge and length to give the best charging performance.

[Number1]

Thanks for the responses guys. I first need a new alternator then I will go from there.