Alternator draining the battery

[craig-ultima]

I'm sure this is a simple problem. The alternator is draining the battery when the car is off. To the tune of about 3.5 amps, which I assume is the priming current for the magnets. Its a Powermaster alternator.

Can someone post specifically which plugs go where?

Thanks.

[steve_D]

You can't mistake the main feed so that leaves,
Looking on the back and working clockwise you have Brown/Yellow then Brown.

Steve

[craig-ultima]

Thanks Steve for the quick reply.

I did some more digging. This is a Denso 8172 Alternator from Powermaster and the website recommends connecting to an ignition switched power source since it "drains 300 mA or more".

The Ultima wiring is not setup for this, so no idea why they gave me this alternator. Seems silly.

I think I'll run a switched line to the smaller of the solid brown wires. If this is unplugged, there is no drain on the battery.

Anyone else have to do this? Or any reason that I shouldn't do it?

[steve_D]

The wire info I gave is based on the Powermaster version of the Delco style alternator. Powermaster model 8003.

I believe the thin Brown will be a permanent live. The Brown/Yellow is from the ignition light the other side of which is ignition switched live.

Steve

[andygtt]

mine drained the battery when I put the two small auxilery wires the wrong way round to the alternator....
Can't tell you which was which as it was 2 years ago, but its got to be worth checking.

[craig-ultima]

I did go ahead and put a relay in, switched off the ignition, to connect the smaller brown wire going into the alternator to the battery.

This seemed to do the trick. The car now draws just 35 mA when it is off (clock, radio memory and alarm).