1963 Falcon 170 generator to alternator conversion

Creechn32

Well-known member
The past couple weeks I've been fiddling with this conversion. My goal was to do the conversion on a decent budget without having to have any parts involved that were not readily available at any parts store. This led me to a GM style alternator as I already had one sitting around I could use for mockup also. I wanted to go one wire because my local Advance store had one in stock but it wouldn't line up properly. I ended up going with a three wire GM style and leaving my stock voltage regulator in at the same time. The three wire is internally regulated so I don't actually use the voltage regulator for that purpose. I will outline the steps in this post.

Step One: removing the generator, this is pretty self explanatory. Oh yeah, disconnect the battery. Remove the wires, remove the belt, remove mounting bolts and remove that, what feels like, 50lb hunk of metal...

Step Two: moving the bottom mount bracket forward in order to line up with the front of the upper swing arm bracket. For me this consisted of drilling two 1/2" holes about 7/8" to 15/16" to the rear of the existing holes on the bracket.

Step Three: I also ground about 1/4" off the top on the front half of the bracket and rounded the front of the bracket taking about a 1/4" of material off the front around the bolt hole to clearance for the alternator hitting the bracket.

Step Four: I had an old GM 3 wire alternator from an 81 c10 pickup laying in the building I used for mockup. I made sure mounting it up that the pulley would line up correctly. I was pretty sure it would as I measured my generator first. I got 1-3/8" from the front face of the generator to the outside of the pully. I got the same measurement on the alternator. I also had a bracket from the same truck still mounted to the rear of the alternator that I used as a spacer behind the alternator. Without this bracket you could use a short piece of iron pipe or even a piece of 1/2" copper pipe. I ended up having to run to Lowes and purchase a 7"x3/8" bolt, three flat washers, one lock washer, and a nut for the lower mounting bracket. Two of the flat washers made up the 1/4" extra space I still had in the lower generator bracket. Everything mounted up nicely. I went to a local parts store and picked up a new reman alternator that was the same as the one I had. The bearing in mine was screaming.

Step Five: WIRING: I did some researching online, turned out I could turn my 3 wire into a one wire and have it self excite. First thing I did was get some 10awg wire from the parts store and and some weatherproof connectors. I got eyes to fit the terminal on the solenoid and the charging lug on the back of the alternator. Also push clip ends to hook into the alternator where the pigtail normally goes in. You could use a pigtail for the alternator but I already had to buy the wire so I figured I would make my own. The first wire I made up was for charging the battery. It ran from the charging lug on the back of the alternator to the lug on the starter solenoid that the battery hooked to. All you have to do after that is figure out which terminal coming off of where the pigtail plugs in will excite the alternator, or cause it to start charging. Easiest way is to make a jumper, plug it into the alternator and touch it to the charging lug on the rear. One of these connectors will cause the alternator to begin charging, you can hear it when it happens. Once I had all this determined the other connector would actually be for the dummy light on the dash. This is why I kept my stock voltage regulator in place. I had a yellow or white wire originally hooked to the generator that wound up being the correct wire for the dash light. It was hard to tell the original color as the previous owner painted all wires black along with the engine bay. I had a little trouble with this at first because I would hook the wire up and the mechanical points in my regulator would stick together causing the light to actually illuminate when turning the key off. I ended up removing the cover from my stock regulator and pushing the tab for the top point to where it applied more pressure with the spring for that point that was sticking. This fixed the issue and the dash light for the generator began functioning properly. I also ended up needing a 15340 v-belt to make this setup work. Even though the case on the alternator is supposed to be internally grounded I still added a ground strap from the rear of the alternator right up to where the ground from the battery hooked to the engine.

On a side note I ended up adding heat shrink to the connector ends that plug into the voltage regulator on the alternator. This was a safety point so if a connector came loose it wouldn't short out against the case of the alternator and perhaps start a fire or melt wires. This is something I was wanting to do before I started adding relays and such for lighting, ignition, possible electric fan, radio system and such.

The factory generator is a 30 amp model and a cheap 3 wire alternator that can be found at almost any parts store for about $50 runs 63 amps. At least the one I picked up does. This should cover me for anything I plan on doing and if not I can always upgrade later with a similar style that wires up the same and puts out more amperage. So far it works great and I havnt had any issues. I also don't have any parts involved in this that isn't available down the road at a parts store. No funky wiring to be done and other than the alternator everything looks stock. Including the original voltage regulator.

 
Great post! I’ve been wanting to do this to my 64 for awhile as I want more electric gadgets. Anyways can you out more pictures of the bracket if you wouldn’t mind. It’s probably just that I’m not the brightest but I don’t quite understand how to drill the bracket to mount and accept alternator.
Thanks
Jarod
 
falcon_master":1qydg29h said:
Great post! I’ve been wanting to do this to my 64 for awhile as I want more electric gadgets. Anyways can you out more pictures of the bracket if you wouldn’t mind. It’s probably just that I’m not the brightest but I don’t quite understand how to drill the bracket to mount and accept alternator.
Thanks
Jarod

I'll see what I can do....
 
Good detailed description and clean work too. The pictures are helpful also and it has that factory look. Are your headlights brighter?
 
bmbm40":1rp3qg7b said:
Good detailed description and clean work too. The pictures are helpful also and it has that factory look. Are your headlights brighter?

Not yet. One of my plans is to run relays just for that. I've been thinking of going the LED route with amber halos for turn signals. They don't dim at idle anymore though. I'll probably run relays before I make any purchases. I'd seen a few discussions about alternators but had not seen much detail on the entire process....
 
"...had not seen much detail..."
some of us use 'stang Steve.
https://www.mustangsteve.com/gentoalt.html

Also:
viewtopic.php?f=101&t=54798
viewforum.php?f=98

there was a guy did one upgrade w/pic and a several page thread (wiz it 'one wire'?)...this below 1 is too new
for the comprehensive one I remember. Perhaps its in our stickies? Wuz/is 'one of our members'. It had links
to his garage'n good detail. His own site w/other mods categorized out by selectable buttons. Here's F. Rabbit:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=78937&p=608917&hilit=generator+to+alternator#p608917
(My '08 putter crashed..gotta get the HD out to dwn load my archive 4 this one). @ least I'm back on-line now...
 
That is on my list also and I have some info somewhere on the headlight relay. Reports are that the headlights are brighter with the relay and I plan to upgrade to a typical halogen lights so should have much brighter lights than now. Also want the brighter led for turn,tail and brake lights. Probably a horn relay as well and maybe even the heater fan switch and thinking about getting a relay/fuse box at picnpul on half price day.
Most people nowadays need more than the old generator can put out. The 250 in my Bronco has kind of a standard alt for that year might be about 60 amps. I figure I will need all of that for a big amp and speakers so I can blast my hippy music while cruising around. Also thinking about seat warmers as the Bronco can be a bit chilly with the top off in the shoulder seasons.
If you know of a good source for the led bulbs let us know.
 
I swapped in nice glass H4 halogen fixtures b/c my bulbs were just too dim even when new. They were ok driving around town but I drove back from an airport up north just before the crack of dawn with a light fog and I knew I had to do something. I was white knuckling it here and there. I'm still planning on doing the relay but the difference with regular street legal hella H4 bulbs was a huge improvement over the sealed beams. I bet it's going to get brighter still run direct through a relay.
 
just don't 4get the upgrade harness'n relays w/the H4. I think I'm gunna love that, simplest way
(new buckets/H4'n above, no alt needed).
 
falcon_master":2hhhrinw said:
Great post! I’ve been wanting to do this to my 64 for awhile as I want more electric gadgets. Anyways can you out more pictures of the bracket if you wouldn’t mind. It’s probably just that I’m not the brightest but I don’t quite understand how to drill the bracket to mount and accept alternator.
Thanks
Jarod


Here are a few pictures of the bracket I modified. I measured and a piece of pipe 3-1/2" long would be good for filler behind the alternator. I might do this so it will be a little cleaner. I actually had to round the front of the bracket so the alternator fan wouldn't hit it. Everything worked out great and I didn't have to go buy a $30-$40 bracket on top of the alternator, belt, wiring, etc. Atleast this way I was able to save a few dollars. And like I said, with this setup I don't have to worry about any hard to find parts....

 
looks a lill like the bracket one of the typical bronk vendors sell 4 the i6 (none-PS) but w/o the alt on there I cannot tell. Is it Chuck @ BCBronks? in Tx (nee` of Cal).
 
Back
Top