I have been looking at upgrading or converting from a 60 amp oem alternator for my 79 F-150 (460) to a 100 amp 1 wire ford type alternator. What is the different other than to clean up under the hood. I assume it does away with the ext. regulator. Anyone, please explain further and how do you wire it up?

 

Not sure what you mean by one wire unless you mean one large wire. They all have to have a control wire.

Here are two diagrams of systems, the first one is like yours now and the second one is of one with the internal regulator.

With a 100 amp system you will need the big wire to be 8 GA with a 12 GA fuse link.

Your system:
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g9...ulator1977.jpg

Internal system:
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g9...lator21977.jpg

 

Yes, I do not think Ford had a one wire alternator unless you are getting it from the aftermarket and it's been modified.

 

Yes, it is a aftermarket thru JEG'S. They call it 1-wire ford hybrid alternator. They have them for Ford and GM. So, does this mean they do have one wire or what?

 

yes, 1 wire to the positive of your battery, internal regulator, very clean and simple, Powermaster is the brand i believe, unless there are more makers of them now

 

They have a special regulator inside the alternator to trigger it to charge. It has to detect automatically when to bring the alt "online" to charge, and "offline" when the engine is not running so it will not run down the battery.

You have to make sure you run a fairly large wire for these as was mentioned, and in some installations they can be finicky to get them to charge. What this usually means is you may have to rev the engine a little bit to get it to start charging after you just start the engine.