Alternator Not Charging Battery

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Jake Oleszak

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I found a guy that was able to get me the part. He was thinking the dealership gave me the wrong part number or something but he was confident this was the right art. I’ll get it tomorrow and make sure it’s right.


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Jake Oleszak

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I didn’t want to mess with it myself because I don’t know anything about that fuse link. I guess I could have bypassed it for testing purposes, but with my luck, my truck would have blown up. I’ve been wanting to swap out this cable anyway because of how loose it is. It never really seemed right to me.


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Jake Oleszak

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I took the cable to a custom automotive shop. They confirmed the cable is shot. But they can’t find a fusible link to make a new cable?

So what am I supposed to do here?


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TobyU

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I took the cable to a custom automotive shop. They confirmed the cable is shot. But they can’t find a fusible link to make a new cable?

So what am I supposed to do here?


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I know most people obsess over it but it's really not that critical. The fusible link probably goes to power the ECM or maybe feeding back from the alternator to the battery. It's just there to give it a chance and a place to melt if the wire were too short out so it wouldn't build up so much he from out the entire wire in that circuit. That's why they put it in that little plastic long rectangular sheet. If the wire shorts out somewhere it will just melt inside of that without damaging much else. I'm guessing that's probably the wire coming back from the alternator but I can't say for certain. You can make your own with some similar gauge wire. That's all fusible links are is smaller wire than the rest of the circuit so they will melt through.
I would just match up what's already in there. Sometimes they will be two or even three smaller wires inside. Just check them and see what they are. If they are 12 gauge wire replace with 12 gauge wire. If 14 use 14.
Go to the electrical crimp section and find you some connectors that will work. You could in theory even use like yellow size wire nuts and then shrink wrap it all or tape it or put that plastic back over top of it.
If you use crimp connectors and reuse the plastic it will all be inside and it will look just the same way it did before. If you used a wire nut on each end I would fold the wire nuts over and then tape that small part with electrical tape.
It will make no difference. Electrically it has no impact. It's not a matter of having the perfect size wire so the proper amount can get through or anything like that. Unless you were to go crazy and put very small speaker wire in there then that would not be good. If you simply replace the wire with approximately, or the same size wire it will do the same thing. They're only designed to work in a dead short to ground situation.
 
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Jake Oleszak

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Alright everyone. I spent all evening yesterday contacting people who were parting out Expeditions. I finally found a guy who had the cable (after hours of people not messaging back and people who had them already cut). They were 2 hours away. I went today to get it, installed, and everything is right as rain!

Thanks everyone for the help and advice.

My next task is replacing my instrument cluster since the message center screen is dimmed out!


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