Thanks for all of the help on the intake manifold, we got that all squared away..

1998 mustang GT conv.

My buddy has been driving his car, and his alternator was making noise.. So he swapped it out with a refurb. Being a mechanic I HATE using refurb anything, just leads to issues.. The car had NO ISSUES before messing with the alternator, so no shorts, bad voltage, or anything..

Well he went out and drove it and when he floored it on the freeway he heard something pop. The car shut off, then restarted as it was moving. and the battery needle was down.. Well he swapped out the alternator again and still nothing. So he bought another alternator from another parts store and still nothing..

Battery is well charged.

Well I go over to check it out and he blew both fusable links coming off the alternator to battery cable.

MY guess is that the first alternator some how took a crap being refurb. and Blow the fuse links.

Well we went to 6 different auto parts stores, napa, autozone, advanced, ford dealership, carquest.. None of them had the fuse links..

He wired in a 80amp fuse to see if the alternator will charge and it did, ran great, battery meter was in the normal, everything was good.

Went for a drive and when he floored it, it blew the fuse.

My guess is 80 amp isnt enough, since its a 130 +/- alternator, when he gave it gas it hit 100 or so, and blew the fuse..

Were still trying to locate some fuse links, but are there any other thoughts or things we can do??

 

There would only be high amperage flowing if the battery were completely dead or there was a nasty short that only showed up at higher RPMs (very unlikely)--are you 100% certain the block is well connected to the negative battery terminal?

The generator uses the block as it's "ground" reference--if it was floating the generator might run wild.

As to re-manufactured components I have only had 2 or 3 bad ones in nearly 50 years, I've had that many new components that were defective--maybe I've just been lucky.

One key is to NEVER buy the cheapest there is, when you do there's a very good chance you will end up with the cheapest there is...head for the middle of the price range.

 

Well thats what he thought, so he bought a "new" one from napa that was more expensive.. The ground is hooked up..

Any idea what kind of amps come out of the alternator? For it to blow a 80 amp fuse?

 

It's capable of 110A at 6000 rpm, but again it shouldn't be doing that unless there is something sucking up that much power (1500W). The fact that the fusible link and fuse blew indicate that something was sinking (consuming) that much amperage--it wouldn't/couldn't flow without something connected to "ground" converting it to motion or heat...