[astroede]

I was able to reach the back of the alternator, with small wrenches, from the top, with no problems. Certainly some contortions required.

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[Cloud9...68]

Thanks; I don't exactly have small hands, but I'll take the chance on multiple cuts and bruises on them if I can avoid the hassle of R & R'iing that wretched alternator! <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/mad.gif" class="smilie" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/sad.png" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[tamathumper]

Having the radiator off certainly helps with removal and re-installation of the alternator, and with loosening the mounting bolts for the AC compressor (for belt removal). There was no way my hands would fit down behind the alternator, and the rubber boot that covers the large cable/connection on the back was either rubber- or age-cemented onto the cable anyway, so there was no way I could get it off.



If I ever have to take the alternator off again, I will use a file to ease the edges of the mounts on the motor, and perhaps shave off just a bit from the face of the front one. The trick for me was getting the lower mounting bolt into place from underneath, and then being able to "swivel" it into place on the upper mount with a pry bar against the fender and a drift from the front. But it still took a half hour, some pretty serious bleeding, and 437 curse-words.



Note: I was confused about what I needed to buy and just opted for "the whole kit". If my car is any indication, the only cable you *must* replace is the alternator-to-starter cable, and I highly recommend talking to Robby about getting one pre-built with the exciter and solenoid cables included, if at all possible. He may be able to leave the ends of them bare and you can splice them into the electrical connector above the brake booster. It's a stupid little 2-pin affair that is supposedly expensive, but it's just a plastic connector, and you could even opt to remove it and replace it with spade lugs.

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[Cloud9...68]

Yes, with the primary failure mode being the starter-to-ignition switch wire shorting to the other wire inside the sheath, causing the starter to "self-start", it seems that the power cable kit, while probably a "nice-to-have" item, kind of misses the boat. I emailed Robby last night, asking him about this. I also inquired about a possible group buy.



For me, with the car morphing into a mainly-track car, my primary interest is the elimination of any extraneous voltage drop across the circuit the comprises the battery and the starter (so I guess the battery-to-starter, and the battery-to-ground cable) to help out the lightweight battery I plan to install, making sure the starter doesn't self-start (again!), and of course replacing any cables that are in bad shape. I'm not sure the supplemental battery-to-fuse box and the supplemental-to-ground cables are all that important to me.



From your experience so far, could you list the cables in the kit in order of installation difficulty?



And did you say you have to remove the A/C/alternator belt? Nooooo!!!!!! I just got done tightening it with the fabulous P9201 tool I borrowed from another forum member, and have been feeling so good about getting its tension "perfect". Please say there's a way around this....

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[MB968]

Thanks to astroede's post a month or so ago, I was able to replace my wiring with a new harness while the engine was out of the car. I made the harness from parts obtained from the local Home Depot. Below is some info on crimping the large #4 wire lugs, and wire sizes that might be useful to others doing the job themselves.

___________________

When I found that the alternator-to-starter wire that I had was bare, and just wrapped in tape, I decided to replace it. I now have a new #4awg replacement wire. I found some old dies that I had to crimp ends on custom spark plug wires which worked well at crimping the new lugs on the #4 wire. I also put another layer of shrink wrap over the top of the other two wires; didn't want to deal with the factory two pin connector and new wires. So, now have a much improved harness that should stand the test of time.



Astroede, I finally found some good cross references between metric wiring measured in mm squared and AWG. I came up with the same #4 awg for the alternator-to-starter wire, and #16 for the alternator voltage regulator. But, the wiring diagram for the '92 968 shows the starter solenoid wire as 4 mm squared. A #12 awg only shows as 3.3 mm squared, and since we can't easlily buy #11, the correct replacement size for the starter solenoid looks to me like it should be a # 10 awg.



The reason that the cross-section of the wire may be misleading is that wire sizing and thus conversions actually look at the total crossectional area of all the copper strands added up. So, you can't accurately use the OD of the wire to compare two wires if the # of strands/strand diameter is different. Very thin stranded wire will likely have a smaller OD for the same AWG number as a larger stranded wire. Anyway, the table below provides a good ref. (I compared a couple of reliable sources to insure it's accuracy.)



AWG Number Ø [Inch] Ø [mm] Ø [mm²]



1 0.289 7.35 42.4

2 0.258 6.54 33.6

3 0.229 5.83 26.7

4 0.204 5.19 21.1

5 0.182 4.62 16.8

6 0.162 4.11 13.3

7 0.144 3.66 10.5

8 0.128 3.26 8.36

9 0.114 2.91 6.63

10 0.102 2.59 5.26

11 0.0907 2.30 4.17

12 0.0808 2.05 3.31

13 0.0720 1.83 2.62

14 0.0641 1.63 2.08

15 0.0571 1.45 1.65

16 0.0508 1.29 1.31

17 0.0453 1.15 1.04

18 0.0403 1.02 0.823

19 0.0359 0.912 0.653

20 0.0320 0.812 0.518

21 0.0285 0.723 0.410

22 0.0253 0.644 0.326

23 0.0226 0.573 0.258

24 0.0201 0.511 0.205

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[tamathumper]

Cloud, not having installed the other cables yet, I probably shouldn't guess the order of difficulty, but I'd say the alternator-to-starter one is definitely the hardest, because it involves removing all the under-panels and intake plumbing as well as the accessory belts, the alternator, cutting cable ties under the intake manifold, fishing out the old solenoid and exciter wires, re-fishing them into the new harness, etc.



The other ones have to be a cake-walk in comparison.

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[Cloud9...68]

Thanks - whew, that alternator-to-starter cable does sound like a whole lotta exact-opposite-of-fun. But I may be a beneficiary of my own ineptitude here - when I took my engine out, I did a lousy job of photographing and documenting the connection points and routing of all the wires, hoses, and connectors (hey, I thought I'd be putting it all together in a few weeks - ha! Here it is 15 months later, and there's still absolutely no end in sight to this project <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/sad.png" class="smilie" alt="" /> ), so the alternator-to-starter cable is just sort of dangling alongside the oil pan, unsure of where it's really supposed to be attached. So, it's quite accessible. It also looks like I could get a wrench on the bolt attaching the cable to the alternator without having to remove the dern thing. After reading about your trials, I was prepared to punt on the whole power cable replacement thing, but I think I may go forward with it after all.



But I'm anxious to hear what Robby has to say about the starter-to-ignition switch wire. I definitely hear you on those bullet connectors. Porsche must be the only company that used them, because I needed some to jumper some connectors in my passenger air bag circuit, and like you, I couldn't find anything close locally.

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[Lear35A]

No contact with Robby over the wknd, but it wasn't that I didn't try. I sure hope he'll make up the whole thing. I'm not worried about the white connector. Shouldn't be too hard to find a nice 2 plug connector at Radio Shack to replace it.

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[banditsc]

The install really wasn't the bad for me. I didn't remove the alternator, just unbolted the cables from the alternator from the top of the car. Shouldn't take more then a couple hours for all the cables.

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[tamathumper]

If punt means not doing it, I'm afraid that's really not an option, unless you can always leave the car out of gear when unattended?

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[Lear35A]

Ok. Just had long talk with Robby. He's going to make up a complete cable for me with exciter and solenoid wires already in. Hope to hve schedule tomorrow. Hope it's quick, and I'll report.

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[tamathumper]

I have to imagine those connectors are available *somewhere*... I'll try searching Mouser or some of the other places we use for network and computer interface plugs. Really, all you need is the *pins*, although having a new end already terminated on the cable would make it plug-and-play.

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[Lear35A]

That would be great. Robby has not been able to source these. The alternative is to get something from Radio Shack and then cut off the female half of the connector near the firewall. Much better if we could just get new pins!

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[banditsc]

You can find all the electrical connectors and pins and what not in PET.

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[Lear35A]

In theory, yes. However, the PET does not identify which connectors are used where. Illustrations 902-50 through 902-66 show a bunch of connectors, but none of them look exactly like T24, the connector in question here. The PET is a very useful but imperfect document.

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[tamathumper]

I searched the PET last week for the round pins, but did not find one I thought was "the one".

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[Lear35A]

Could be item 8 or 9 on 902-50. But how many trial and error purchases are you going to make to find "the one"? Not worth it when there are plenty of standard two pin connectors one can get to just splice in.



I made this drawing and sent it to Robby. Look OK?

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[Lear35A]

The T24 white connector seems to be an "AMP 926101 02P pin housing." Can't find it available on line. Anyone know someone who works for AMP or works for a big customer of AMP that might help us out?

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[tamathumper]

Sorry, I don't know about the specifics on the cables - I didn't take any measurements of mine while they were out of the car. I simply used the existing solenoid cable to make a new one that was slightly longer.

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[MB968]

[quote name='Lear35A' timestamp='1342449311' post='129435']



I made this drawing and sent it to Robby. Look OK?

[/quote]



Found the old/original alternator to starter cable. From center of eyelet to center of eyelet, it measured 129mm, or ~50 3/4 inches. As far as I can tell it is the original cable, as it has no insulation, only the electrical tape wrap that someone else had done as a repair. Looks like the cable length without the ends is 125mm or about 49 1/4".



I measured the small wires from the 2 pin connector. I get about 21" from the connector to the other side of the wire strap on the bellhousing where these two split off from the rest of the cable.



I think there is also a dimension issue with the drawing. If you take 20 inches away from both of the small wires, they don't add to the length of the alt/starter wire.

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