Thread: For Don Shilady

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Holy Cow! Friday I looked at this thread from a PC/terminal at my summer job and was amazed to see all the old pictures displayed all the way back to the Indy cars Jerry Clayton contributed and my pictures of the 1920-and-earlier meet in Ashland with the neat T roadster. Today all the pictures are gone again except for the three that I added recently of my own car and my engine. Is it too much to ask for some policy explanation?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Your pictures are all there, from page one through this page sixteen, Don. Brent fixed the picture issue a week or two back and posted a notice - Old picture attachments are back.... . Sounds like you've got a problem with your home computer. Try logging out of CHR completely (clears all cookies), clear your browser history, clear your cache, reboot your computer and then log back in to CHR and see if that fixes it for you.

Thanks Roger,
I now see more pictures including the Force daughters and the Indy cars but most of my build documentation are just noted as "attachments". Many of those pictures were previously posted scattered across a number of threads but do not show on my laptop. It is interesting that pictures that do not show on Google Chrome do show on Internet Explorer but tell me if you can see the pictures of my roadster build up.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don,
You're right, I cannot see your build photos with either Google Chrome or Internet Explorer. It appears that they are links rather than saved files, but that's a question for Bill & Brent.

Well back to business. I am a novice in the world of alternators. The alternator shown in the picture on the previous page is a Rayloc 13-8283 60 amp unit. Sometimes my instruments go crazy and flutter hi/lo. At first I thought this was due to a short on the back of the alternator due to the tight fit with the front of the SBC block. Since no fuses are blown I now think that Jerry Clayton put his finger on the problem as being due to insufficient amperage from the alternator trying to feed an electric water pump as well as other current drains. I have learned about the large number of alternators available but I wonder if anyone on this Forum is alternator savvy relative to mounting a small high amp alternator on the lower left drivers sde of the SBC block? So far the folks I have called on the phone do not know the dimension for the front-to-rear dimension. "Bill" at Rayloc says a 105 amp 213-4514 SW Rayloc is ony about 10 mm larger diameter which will fit but he does not know the front-to-back dimension. I tried to look for other SBC Ford A/B low alternator installations and so far I don't think there is much clearance around my Vega steering box. Soooo, with all the experts here does anyone know of a small 100-105 amp alternator for a Brookville frame with a Vega steering setup>

Don Shillady
Retired Scientst/teen rodder

Bracket Kits


I'm working on a bracket system that doesn't hang quite as low as these because I feel they are too close to where the steering links could be on full suspension deflection down---------altho they also can be used on the right side of SBC which might help also--


And look around there site--got some teminals like you need for your install---


I know the outfit that makes there stuff------

Thanks for your reply Jerry. I have chatted with the Tech at Rayloc, a Tech at Moroso and finally a Tech at Power Master. Here is what I found out. The bracket I have at present is from Moroso and is designed for and limited to a 93 mm diameter alternator. The bracket is designed for a race car and according to the Power Master Tech my present Rayloc 13-8283 is probably one of the higher amp 93 mm alternators and I would have to change the whole bracket to go to a larger higher amp unit. Other 93 mm alternators are 50 or 55 amp units whcih is all that is needed for a racing car with few accessries. The Tech at Power Master had the best suggestion to run a ground wire from the outer case of the alternator to the engine block because he knew of cases where the aluminum Moroso bracket corroded or was anodized forming a loss of a good ground connection. There is an easy alternator case bolt (small hex nut on the outside) and a nearby exhaust manifold bolt for a ground connection but I am studying this as I am wary of electrical connections. I will ponder over this possible improvement to get the full amps possible from my present setup since it works fine at 55 mph engine rpm of about 2000 and I am mainly worried about having headlights at night. I don't use the quadraphonic radio speaker system much at all and I have found that if I give the battery a quick charge before a given run there is no problem. Thus maybe an extra ground connection will help and I can live with what I have as helped by a ground wire.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Well here is the latest fix for the mystery of the fluttering gauges. I checked with my younger brother who has an Electrician Certification and he spotted it before I even finished the sentence about the aluminum bracket. Even if the outside of the bracket is still shiny (mine has signs of chalky oxide) the electrical connection between the steel mounting bolts and the aluminum bracket will still suffer corrosion due to the contact between two different metals. So I went over to my local Arcet wholesaler who has a beautiful 1929 Model A pickup (all medium blue) towing a "hotrod" welding cart with lake pipes on the engine and told them I had one almost like that. They gave me a piece of No.4 multistrand wire with a connector pressed on one end for free provided I stopped back to show them my car. Then I drove 100 feet to a nearby electrical parts shop and got a connector for the alternator for a cool $1.98. I am attaching a picture of the short length of No. 4 cable. A short test drive revealed the voltmeter was steadier and there was no flutter in any of the other gauges. At 40 mph the voltmeter read 15 volts and ony varied with engine rpm, so now I think I have finally solved the problem. I left the perf board separator between the alternator and the SBC block but will probably remove it when I get a chance.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

You've got plenty of current capacity in that honker #4 cable, and that's for sure! Wow!

You realize of course that the cable is going to get extremely hot mounted to the header bolt and will transfer the heat to the alternator. I would have grounded it to the front of the block.

I can do it over again if it gets too hot but it is not obvious where I can find a cooler point. The intake manifold bolt visible in the photo is bolted to another aluminum part. It is simple to get a longer cable if I can find a cooler attachment point. The main point here is that the ground cured the electrical problem. Next may be a heat problem.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

There are generally only two things that go bad on alternators, diodes and bearings and you will introduce a lot of heat to the case and thus to the bearing. There should be a couple of unused bosses in the front of the block, early sbc's were saddled mounted to the front cross member and that is where I'd put the ground. You also need to reroute #1 spark plug cable as it appears to be laying on the header. Newer spark plug cables will take a lot of heat, but not if they're laying on the header pipes and a burnt cable causes a multitude of headaches, ask me how I know that.

I think when Webster releases the next issue, a picture of that wire should be included in their definition of overkill.

AlternatorGround.JPG

Well the saddle mount bolt bosses are occupied with the aluminum electric water pump mounts so I found the bolt boss that would be used for a lower alternator mount. Overkill or not the No. 2 copper multi-strand cable now is grounded with a star washer to the front of the block. A tech guy at Powermaster told me he has seen a number of cases where the Moroso aluminum mount did not provide an adequate ground and my main mechanic Bruce Orlandi reminded me that some alternators have a second wire attachment for a ground so while that thick cable may be overkill it does provide a good ground directly to the block. Trying to start the engine without success many times led to fouled plugs so a new set of plugs and a reset of the Pertronix distributor resulted in a better running engine BUT only after I found the real problem! I don't know whether there is a universal color code for the small horse shoe type fuses but when my dual fan setup was installed a "green" fuse marked 20 amps found its way into the coil circuit. The original recommendation from It's-A-Snap was for a 30 amp fuse. When I replaced the 20 amp fuse with a 30 amp fuse the engine started right away although with two fouled plugs. Now after another set of new plugs the engine runs smooth and the pipes sound great! My latest theory is that when the second fan came on the current drain starved the distributor with too little current. I am adding a neater picture of the new thick cable mount. The next time I have the car in for State Inspection (November) I think I will try to find a MSD distributor with a small cap to replace the Pertronix conversion inside the small cap SBC 327 distributor that was all I could find to fit with a tight firewall clearance. I will also have to keep an eye on those plug wires to keep them off the headers. Eventually I will have to replace those wires with shorter wires. Overkill or not on the ground wire at least I did get rid of the clunky separator between the alternator and the block! I have made sure all the plug wires have at least one inch of header clearance since I took the picture! It is necessary to tilt the angle of the picture to see the No 2 cable in the darkness under the water pump.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I think I finally found the real problem. The alternator drive does not spin the alternator fast enough to keep the battery charged! I came across this problem and it's solution on another board and wonder why folks here did not spot it. Anyway I have on order a 5" pulley for the Moroso mandrel on the crank balancer which is 25% larger in diameter than the usual 4" pulley supplied in the Moroso water pump mount kit. In addition I ordered a slightly smaller pulley for the alternator of 2 3/8" which gives another 11% increase in rpm of the alternator. Since most of the time my 700R4 runs in OD the engine is typicaly running at around 2000-2200 rpm most of the time and ideling at a traffic light lets the alternator rpm drop below about 40 amps. Both the pulleys are available from Jones Racing Products in Ottsville Penna. Other folks have said this change in the pulleys does solve the typical gauge flutter when the amperage drops below what is needed. At worst the engine stalls when driving slowly since the alternator is not supplying enough amperage even for the distributor and this has happened to me mysteriously several times. I will add more details after the installation of these pulleys. I suppose there is a danger of over revving the alternator at say 5500 rpm on the engine but so far my 700R4 shifts well below 3500 engine rpm unless I hold it in low or second gear. Even in second gear I have only seen a high of 4500 rpm from the engine on extreme acceleration. I would rather have lights at night than save a few H.P. in alternator drag so the higher pulley ratio is better for the street.

Don Shilady
Retired Scietist/teen rodder