[Old Chevy Mech]

To anyone who want to keep the stock set-up I have a few suggestions. Obviously if you change the power needs of your vehicle drastically, you would need a bigger alternator. But what I have found to be a very successful methods of making these old systems perfom flawlessly is simple;

1- Keep the battery amp choice close to stock. A little over original is ok, but keep in mind that recharging a high amp battery requires a high amp capacity charging system. I run a stock battery I get from walmart.

2- Spend time and make sure the grounds on your truck are flawless. This could seem trivial, but poor grounds create line voltage fluctuations which can fatigue the charging system. I cant emphasisze enough how important this step really is.

3- Change your battery every 4 years, disregard the 60 month theory. If you think about it a $60.00 battery costs about $1.25 a month for 4 years. Its worth changing in my opinion. I also cut open a battery that was at its 4 year life and did a cel by cell volt check and the cell at the positive terminal lug was .5 volts lower then the rest. So if thats at 4 years, how low would it be at 5?

4- If you kill your battery accidentally, never ever use the charging system on the truck to charge the battery if possible. If you need a jump in the field as soon as you can get a charger on that battery do so and leave it on low amp charge for about 8-10 hrs.

I'm sure I dont hold the patent on electrical system good ideas, I just figured I offer what has worked flawlessly for me over the past 20 years.

Frank