91 Alternator into 88... Help

[devon527]

I searched and only found info about my 88 alt. I need help on which wires to connect together when putting the newer alt in... needs to be tonight! thanks

[skimsucka]

it doesnt matter ive been using my 88 alt in my b8 swap and now my 90lx car
as far as i gathered there both just signal wires one for dummy light in gauge cluster and one for ecu

they put out the same signal/amps

[devon527]

Are you positive? I heard it might royaly screw something up

[skimsucka]

im 85% on it. I guessed when putting 88 alt into my 90 and everything has been fine for a month now

that guess was after i read many diagrams all showing the same thing

[devon527]

Okay I hope it works

[89newb]

well....did it work

[devon527]

Nope didnt work. I just put them on and then started the car, looked under the hood and there was white smoke from behind the battery. Didnt look too hard before shutting the car off in fear of really screwing something up. This sucks

[nitrofarm]

So it failed the smoke test? Did it blow the fuesable "MAIN" link?
The 89 Alt has a output for the choke. Dont use the wire that went to the Carb choke heater.Are you hooking that up to the "NEW" Alt some how? Otherwise they are the same Alts. You should only be using a White,BK/W & Bk/R wires. Three total,dont use solid red.

[devon527]

So it failed the smoke test? Did it blow the fuesable "MAIN" link?
The 89 Alt has a output for the choke. Dont use the wire that went to the Carb choke heater.Are you hooking that up to the "NEW" Alt some how? Otherwise they are the same Alts. You should only be using a White,BK/W & Bk/R wires. Three total,dont use solid red.

I didnt check the main link. The alt. has the same plug for the wire from the choke as my old one did so I jsut hooked that up. If I dont use the red wire than why not and what do I do with the other 3?

[nitrofarm]

I was under the impression you swaped a efi motor/harness in your car? Anyway thats the only wire thats really dif between the two years. You dont have to have it right now to get running.Hopefully all you smoked was the fuseable link?

[nitrofarm]

I didnt check the main link. The alt. has the same plug for the wire from the choke as my old one did so I jsut hooked that up. If I dont use the red wire than why not and what do I do with the other 3?

How come you dont know where they go? Didnt you take them off? The small one goes to dash charge light & is part of the Voltage reg system
(the smallest of the 3 wires)
One comes from "Main" fuse link
One is from key on ignition
If you can call out the colors of the 3 mystery wires it might help. But you gotta find out what failed on the "smoke test" first. Seriously what burned. The "Main" link????

[devon527]

Nothing that I can find so far is burned... It looks like the main link is where the smoke came from but everything looks fine. Im gonna jack the front of the car up right now and figure out the colors of the wires to the alternator. One red wire comes from the top of the motor obviously and has its own plug. Then the white wire is the same for both, the power I'm guessing. The other two wires are the ones I was confused on, they are the two that both join together into a single plug, the 88 plug is different from 91 and they have different colors for the wires.

[devon527]

Okay so I just slid under the car, the wire from my choke was not hooked up... would that affect anything? Its the big solid red wire coming straight down with its own plug that both alternators have.

For the other two wires, I have black/red hooked to black/red. The other is black/white hooked up to solid red. Any idea where I went wrong?

[devon527]

Just started the car again, barely any smoke this time, but looks to be coming from the main link, it was REALLY hard to tell though. What would make it do this?? Please help guys, its killing me not driving my car to work

[devon527]

been searching, cant find anything on here, and dont want to start the car again until I know whats doing this...