CS144 Upgrade

[hole]

Well, yesterday the old stock alternator gave up, so today the 8 got another upgrade. I picked up a junkyard CS144 140 amp alt for $20 almost a year ago with the intentions of upgrading it right away, but life happened and the project got put on the back burner. The old alt's failure just day's before a 4 day trip across the desert was seen as a small blessing, and the cutting, bending and welding on the stock mount to accommodate the bigger alt started first thing this morning. Another big shout out to TeamRush for step by step instructions to make this a walk in the park

 

[Incommando]

Do you have a link for the TeamRush instructions? Searching "alternator" and TeamRush has not been very successful for me...

 

[mylittlecj5]

look over on his site, junkyardgenious.com

 

[Incommando]

Nice site. I have missed that one. Adding it to the bookmarks bar.

 

[hole]

Incommando, I stumbled across the info on JF under the thread title: Replacing alternator - Should I go for the 140 AMP model? On JF TeamRush goes by JeepHammer The mounting holes on a CS144 are about 3/4" +/- wider apart than the stock 10SI, requiring some cutting and welding. I chose to cut bend and weld plates on the bottom of the mount since the alt only pivots there and leave the top slotted side alone, it seemed stronger to me to do it that way. Wiring is a snap, EC82 pigtail from Napa, cut in and solder the resistor on the smaller "Excite" wire and plug each end together

 

[Incommando]

Thanks...found it:

Replacing alternator - Should I go for the 140 AMP model? - JeepForum.com

 

[IOPort51]

the cut and weld was a good move on your part, I stretched the top first and found it would no longer bolt to the engine.

had to do it all over again.

Incommando, I stumbled across the info on JF under the thread title: Replacing alternator - Should I go for the 140 AMP model? On JF TeamRush goes by JeepHammer The mounting holes on a CS144 are about 3/4" +/- wider apart than the stock 10SI, requiring some cutting and welding. I chose to cut bend and weld plates on the bottom of the mount since the alt only pivots there and leave the top slotted side alone, it seemed stronger to me to do it that way. Wiring is a snap, EC82 pigtail from Napa, cut in and solder the resistor on the smaller "Excite" wire and plug each end together

 

[Incommando]

After reading all of that I gather that adding dual batteries or a large capacity deep cycle or two would better serve me (and probably most of us) better than a beefed-up alt in most cases. This plus a hand throttle that can raise the RPMs above idle when winching, etc... should be adequate in most cases. As the vehicle wiring will only allow for about 35 amps leaving the alt a higher amp alt doesn't improve anything as far as max. output but they do produce a few more amps at or near idle, which is their advantage. I need a battery so I will do a dual battery upgrade for now and add the CS144 when I need to replace the alt.

 

[hole]

Dual Batteries are high on the list too. Since the original alt died I couldn't see buying one with the CS144 sitting on the shelf, free's up more money for beer for my trip

 

[Incommando]

I agree. A dead alt is a great time for this upgrade