100 amp alternator install problems

Talked to Vince he said it seems like everything is hooked up right. Could it be a bad relay or bad battery? Grounds are tight. Still reads same output as the old alternator, 10 1/2 -11 volts. Any ways to trouble shoot this low voltage problem?

If you upgraded and bypassed/removed the voltage regulator then you have to make sure the wiring at the rear of the engine is correct. This is usually the case when an amp meter is used in place of a volt meter. Point being I'll assume your internally regulated now and were previously extrenally regulated which requires more wiring changes than just at the alternator.

79 I bought the alt and new wiring harness from ski dim. I have the retro electronic distributor conversion from ski dim as well on the boat if that matters. New alt came with bigger ground bigger postive cable to connect to the starter solenoid . You remove the orange wire from the existing 50 amp breaker and old positive to alt.

make sure you used the right wiring diagram to rewire and bypass the old external regulator. There is one for a volt meter and one for the ampmeter and they are not the same, so read closely as your either low voltage or back feeding the starter relay.

thatdude596 wrote: My boat only has a volt meter. Does the volt meter on the dash measure battery or alt volts? I was unaware it had an external regulator. You talking about the resistor the dist. Kit came with?

The volt meter in the dash measures the complete system volts but checking it at the battery plus behind the dash with a meter will see if there is a difference. You are looking to see if there's something causing a voltage drop due to resistance. (bad/corroded connections)

I have to assume you got a 1 wire alternator from Vince. Correct? If so, it's internally regulated. You also got the wiring harness and he's also confirmed you wired correctly. Correct? So, let's get back to the battery and start relay.

Best is to get the cheap meter I mentioned then you can check the start relay as mentioned. You never answered what type of battery you have. Hopefully not a deep cycle as mentioned. Get it out, confirm type, hook it up to the charger and charge it. Disconnect the charger and check the volts. You should see about 12.8 on a good battery however the best test is with a load check device. This is a resistor bank that puts a load on the battery for a specific time while you read the voltage. Most auto supplies will do it for you.

You need a VOM or DMM!!! Then start doing the checks I've mentioned.

ok guys did a test with my neighbor and his voltmeter. test as follows.

battery sitting on dock, hasnt been used in a few days- 12.17 volts
battery connected with boat started. 12.00 volts

alternator with boat started showed 14.59 volts

coil showed 7.92 with key turned over, not started

out of a handful of times the started still made a whinning sound all but one time. neighbor said its bad bendix maybe?

the one time the starter didnt stick the alternator made a racket, like there was a nut or bolt being bounced around inside. the boat was fine for about 20-30 seconds then the sound from the alt came. shut it down.

my volt meter still read 10-10 1/2 same as before. whats weird is that last week after i charged my starting battery my volt meter read around 12 volts. now my damn alternator is sticking and the new alt is making a funny loud clanking sound. what next?

eric i had to splice a wire(per directions) as well as delete the orange wire going to the 50 amp breaker as well as the original orange positve wire that went to the alt. lug. im gonna keep the 100 amp on there anyways due to the multiple amps and stereo system. the starting battery is a wal mart ever start maxx 1000 cranking amps 850 cold. i pulled the battery today and have it on a charger to see what kind of volts it shows on the battery thursday. i can test the coil as well lthursday. im pretty postive there is no external voltage regulator on a 94 ski.

Coil is external from ski dim and the electronic distributor utilizes a resistor back by the 50 amp breaker. Confused on how I got 14.59 at the alt and only 12 at the battey while on. It was more with the engine off'
what could cause the new alt to make such a clanking sound? Backfeeding from the starter? Will see what the volts re at the coil with the engine on Thursday

took the boat to fantastik finish and marine to get this mess figured out. kudosto eric for having it fixed the next day! eric- boat runs great except still has a little hesitation out of the hole when cold. no biggie, may have you rebuild my carb this winter. volt gauge reads 13-13.5 when idle, 14 while running her. starter works fine, alt works fine. finally after 2 yrs of this mess its finally fixed. everything works well. btw after you aligned the boat, no more noise when clicking into gear. that made a difference. no more vibration as well. thanks again bro,i appreciate it. gonna head out now to give her a few more paces.

lets just say i backed up the clock and started fresh, aligned it, set the timing. electrical isnt one of my strong suits and i sighed....only for a minute though

sn, backed up the clock and took a fresh look at the harness install. pulled all the leads and started fresh. the exact problem? I would say there was a wiring problem somewhere and it was backfeeding the starter and keeping it running when you started, I threw my own battery up in there wired direct and avoided a bad connection....it wasnt charging also and possibly low voltage to the high side of the coil was causing some of the stumble. got it all back together, fired it, no starter sound, whacked it to excite the altenator and all was good.
set the base, and then aligned. i didnt pay attention while i was dis-assembling and thats why i said i started fresh

attention Dic head (79), he got the brunstucky price too.
this one wouldve left 79 in the dust...250 cash...and you know something DH...I couldve hit him for 500.00 cash and he would still be happy, maybe someday I'll fill you in on how to run a business too

DH pissed me off, i dont know why a guy cant understand that im in the money making business and not the charity business, i do enough on the charity end..
a matter of fact, I took 12 calls, i counted them from the same kid trying to get his trans together, didnt even sell him parts, he went as far as installing the trans and it was locked into reverse, pulled it again and got him straightened out....after all done and said the kid tells me im going to send you a gift card..I just told him dont bother, thats why im here, that genuinly took an hour out of my day
I know i dont have to explain anything to you, He needs to go to his boss Monday morning and tell him hey, im not worth 30 bucks an hour so you only have to pay me 15..when you mess with someones livelyhood it gets very irratating.
you and i both know traffic is drawn to this site because of knowledge, behind the scenes i do benefit from it but not in the way 79 thinks, the sites advertisers benefit, the guy that knows absolutely nothing about boats benefits and so on the last 3 years were a killer and we made alot of sacrifices and then you get a guy taunting you.

Im here for the simple fact that I like helping thats it, but also it is an angle that draws business to me, after all i know this site has came along way, i know im fair with people and i need to be paid, thats how life operates.
I know deep down I dont have to explain myself, I never uttered one bad word about the guy in 2 years..sometimes i feel the need to defend because i take this sht very personally. im not sitting in my garage trying to rebuild transmissions, i built a business around it and have guys that rely on me to get paychecks

Eric,
I feel that 99% of us on site understand you perfectly. There's no need to get into a full explanation however, it's good to hear it in your own words. Thanks for all the help and you continued/future support I'm sure.