84 LTC 3G Upgrade
It fits very well!
The paint match is closer on the passenger side, I can only imagine that's the side they scanned for blending purposes. On the driver side the difference is very visible depending on lighting. Oh well. It's better than the flaking clearcoat beater look it was rocking previously.
Picked up two junkyard '94 Taurus/Sable 3.0 Vulcan alternators with pigtails, which are the smaller 130A variety. I then extracted the charge cables out of two newer Tauruses, ca. 2002, because the cable is a lot easier to dig out of the newer years. The alternators were taken to AutoZone to be tested and both came back OK. One is for the Town Car, the other is for the '83, since poor idle voltage makes the sequential turn signals angry.
Townie's upgrade is done minus ground upgrade; I'm not sure it's truly necessary but will get to it sooner or later. I didn't go 3G to get more juice out of it overall, just to get more out of it at low RPM specifically.
Took apart my harness, eliminated the charge wire and everything relating to the external regulator. Spliced the choke cap wire into the stator wire (in retrospect should have fused this in case of a short, but Ford didn't see fit to so I'm sure it's fine). The internal regulator wants to get battery (+) on one of the wires; for this I just looped it back to the charge wire stud. Alternator is fused with a 150A ANL fuse, which I figure exceeds the highest output I might try to suck out of this thing.
I have previously found that a "50.7" inch belt - 6K507, K060507 - fits this exact alternator when installed in my '91 Grand Marquis. I don't know why, but that didn't work on the '84. Something to do with the other pulley sizes I guess. I tried notching the lower bracket so the alternator could swing over further, no go. Ended up swapping the pulley which isn't a solution I like because it means a roadside swap in case of failure is impossible, but whatever. Thankfully I have air and an impact gun, otherwise I'd have had to abort and put the 1G back.
All-in-all, easily done. Also found the headlamp door "release valve" was leaking and eliminated it for a couple of unions instead...if I need to force the doors open I can just pull the line off the check valve.
Getting things together:
Also note the somewhat visible headlamp door module, as well as the ziptied-on red wire that's for the low oil level switch, as this is a Crown Vic harness. The yellow ziptied-on wire is the constant hot for the headlamp door module and is a temporary solution. Yes, it's fused. You can also see my not-a-fuse-link, and my spare MAP sensor, lol.
Alt vs alt:
Stock harness (85 LTD CV; 84 functional equivalent; LTC has extra wire for oil level)
Laid out left-to-right as it sits in the car
Altered harness (same as above, with alternator stuff removed, except the wire to the light in the cluster)
Fuse
Tada!
It fits very well!
The paint match is closer on the passenger side, I can only imagine that's the side they scanned for blending purposes. On the driver side the difference is very visible depending on lighting. Oh well. It's better than the flaking clearcoat beater look it was rocking previously.
Picked up two junkyard '94 Taurus/Sable 3.0 Vulcan alternators with pigtails, which are the smaller 130A variety. I then extracted the charge cables out of two newer Tauruses, ca. 2002, because the cable is a lot easier to dig out of the newer years. The alternators were taken to AutoZone to be tested and both came back OK. One is for the Town Car, the other is for the '83, since poor idle voltage makes the sequential turn signals angry.
Townie's upgrade is done minus ground upgrade; I'm not sure it's truly necessary but will get to it sooner or later. I didn't go 3G to get more juice out of it overall, just to get more out of it at low RPM specifically.
Took apart my harness, eliminated the charge wire and everything relating to the external regulator. Spliced the choke cap wire into the stator wire (in retrospect should have fused this in case of a short, but Ford didn't see fit to so I'm sure it's fine). The internal regulator wants to get battery (+) on one of the wires; for this I just looped it back to the charge wire stud. Alternator is fused with a 150A ANL fuse, which I figure exceeds the highest output I might try to suck out of this thing.
I have previously found that a "50.7" inch belt - 6K507, K060507 - fits this exact alternator when installed in my '91 Grand Marquis. I don't know why, but that didn't work on the '84. Something to do with the other pulley sizes I guess. I tried notching the lower bracket so the alternator could swing over further, no go. Ended up swapping the pulley which isn't a solution I like because it means a roadside swap in case of failure is impossible, but whatever. Thankfully I have air and an impact gun, otherwise I'd have had to abort and put the 1G back.
All-in-all, easily done. Also found the headlamp door "release valve" was leaking and eliminated it for a couple of unions instead...if I need to force the doors open I can just pull the line off the check valve.
Getting things together:
Also note the somewhat visible headlamp door module, as well as the ziptied-on red wire that's for the low oil level switch, as this is a Crown Vic harness. The yellow ziptied-on wire is the constant hot for the headlamp door module and is a temporary solution. Yes, it's fused. You can also see my not-a-fuse-link, and my spare MAP sensor, lol.
Alt vs alt:
Stock harness (85 LTD CV; 84 functional equivalent; LTC has extra wire for oil level)
Laid out left-to-right as it sits in the car
Altered harness (same as above, with alternator stuff removed, except the wire to the light in the cluster)
Fuse
Tada!
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