Alternator Question

Way back (17 years) when I first got my motor running I bought an alternator for my car and turned in the "old" one as the core. It had a one groove pully on it.

Saturday night I went to a cruise and upon leaving, my car would barely turn over and to make a long story short my lights quit working on the drive home. I did get a jumpstart and barely made it home. Crappy end to a great cruise!

Sunday I removed the Alternator and had it tested at O'Reilly's. It failed! When the guy was connecting it to the machine he put on a pig tail with three wires. One to the field, one to the battery or big post, and one to a ground connection. My car has two wires only. One ring connector that goes to the big post and another that connects to the field. Am I missing the "ground" wire that should be connected? Looking at the FSM I see that they show all three points on the picture they have, It does not say that the ground is connected.

When I replace the alternator should I use a wire to ground that terminal?

Is there a quick way to check the output while it's in the car and running?
The options I have are a 60 amp two pully or a 50 amp single pully. I do not have any accsessory gizmos on the car so I don't need a lot of amp's do I? Not wanting to re-wire the car at this point. I have a week till the Lonestar HotRod Round-up and need to get it ready.


John D. Beckerley
Austin, Texas

:rock: