Thread: Alternator & harness question ve vs. de

Anyone had an alternator shorted? The skinny ground wire that bolts on to the chassis was glowing red and smoking when I turned the car on this morning. Is the harness the same between the ve and de? Reason i ask is b/c I think the alternator has a short in it. The alternator was the one I got with the ve, but I hooked it up with the harness from my de. I think i have to swap the old alty back on it, but i'm not sure if i can re-use the de harness. If the ve harness is the same, i think i'll use it.

The harness is the same from what I saw

they look similar, but not quite the same. I had to enlarge the de ring terminal to fit the main charging wire on the ve alternator. The ve alty is rated 90amp, compared to my de at 80 amp.

i have an alternator harness if you want one...15 shipped cam outs my 91 nx

91-94 DE have the smaller 10mm nut termanal ring

95 and newer DE, DET and VE have the larger 12mm nut termianl ring.

if the wire dont look melted or bad than you can still use it. just check the wire to see if its burned or not if it is than switch it out..prob good idea to use your de alty if its in good condition.

I think my de alt is in better health than the ve one. I was hesitant to use the de one since i didnt know how much longer it would hold up, considering it's 19 years old (the car was built in aug 91). But then again,
the ve alternator was probably eight to ten years younger and something was wrong with it after I drove for about 45 minutes. As for the de harness, I'd have to check continuity between the ends. It was a bit scary to see a ground bolt glowing red and smoking, I thought the battery was going to explode if I didn't quickly unbolt the big wire. The engine was dieseling (slowly) until I unhooked the battery ground wire, I think for about 20 seconds or so.

dang sounds like the alty is making contact inside (t & -),just switch out the alty it shound be fine i have a 14yr old alty still working 100%..

i used the ve alty i got with my ve.. used the ve alty that my gf's ve came with on her g20 an had no problems... used the 16ve alty my freind got with his motor when i did his swap and a week later what do ya know.. the brake light / battery light / fuse box clicking started happening.. swapped his old alty back in an had no issues since..

its luck of the draw, or even russian roulette.. alot are good, but some are bad it happens..

the wiring is the same, just like dre said tho the newer stuff has a bigger post so u gotta put a new thing on the wire or drill it out..

glowing red sounds crazy tho i've never seen that.

Yeah, I'm afraid to put stuff back together. Took it out to get it checked at the local Advance, and it was putting out 2 volts. I expected it to go bad. I never saw the brake light though, but it was clicking the first time i turned the key this morning. The second time it started but died within a few seconds, then started dieseling. I dont have confidence that if i put the old one back that it would just work. I think I have a short somewhere downstream. I smelled burned plastic or transistor around the dash where the fuse box is. Another weird thing was, the buzzer turned on without the key when I connected the battery. What's a good electrical troubleshooting strategy for a b13? I was going to remove the wires from the starter, alternator was already removed, but I'll unplug the wires anyway. Then remove relays under the dash next to the fuse box. Anyone can tell what those relays are for? There's a brown one on top and 3 blue ones below. I plan to measure for voltage with and without the key.