[smdellin]

Forgive me, this pertains to my son's Camaro.

I bought my son a 1990 Camaro (it gets almost 19 mpg). Anyway the alternator stopped charging, thinking it was simply bad after 18 years of service I replaced the new one and it did not charge either.

I troubleshot the system and found 12v at the large wire going to the battery, leaving the two small ones that plug into the side. The wiring diagram showed that these require 12v also of which I found on the red wire but the second brown showed 0v.

I could not find the open in the brown wire so I ran a test wire to 12v and the alternator charges at full 15v.

My question is, can I just clip the brown wire and run it to a 12v source without any issues?

[LPete]

You'll have a draw on the battery with the key off if you hook it to battery power. You could hook it to a switched source and it would work OK.

The wiring diagram shows power on that wire coming from the "Fan FP Fuse". Did you check it?

[smdellin]

I did go through the fuses and all were good but I will check again just to make sure. I am curious now to see if this issue effects my fan also. The fan rarely turns on since the car never heats up (next issue to work). It's the 3.1 and I guess they run cool but in Indiana I need a bit more heat going on.

Thanks for your help!

["QUICK-SILVER"]

The brown wire will only be hot, with the ignition switch in run position.
If both sides of the fuse show hot, with switch in run position, the brown wire has lost connection between fuse box and alternator.