just a though if it ends up being the brain box you can wire up a ford external regulator. i didi this in my cummins conversion in my for works good. if it comes to that pm me and ill tell ya how to wire it and the part no for the regulator

 

It's a relay. Looking under the hood on the driver's side fender, if your truck has A/C you should see a row of 3 relays. The rearmost one is for the A/C compressor, don't remember what the middle one is, but the front one is what the ECM uses to charge. If you have A/C (my truck doesn't) I think you can swap the rear and front relay, fire it up and see if that's it. If it's charging you can get a new relay for about 6 bux from Napa. Autozone also has it. It won't be keyed exactly the same but I cut a slot in the new one and plugged right up.

 

Yep.The front relay is the ASD relay, just switch it with the A/C relay(the rearmost of the 3). Is the wiring going to the crank sensor O.K? Do you have the correct gap between the crank sensor and the damper? It sould be @ 0.050". But it's probably that relay.

 

just wondering are you 100% shure on ALL grounds?

 

don't be so sure that the voltage regulator is good. Mine went bad and let the alternator overcharge (cook) the battery, so I got a new regulator at autozone and still got no charge, took off the alternator and had that tested, put out 15 volts on the stand. put a second new regulator and still nothing. Put the old one back on and got 15 volts. the 3rd new regulator works ok. Takes a few seconds of running before it decides to charge, but works. I think i saw somebody put a single wire GM alternator on, I will seriously consider that route if the alternator itself goes bad.

 

Thanks for all the ideas guys. I'll have to check on some of that stuff the next time I get a chance to work on it. I'm at my new work location in Jacksonville, FL. My truck is still living in Orlando, FL about 2 hours away. I did check all the grounds, between the alternator and body, body and frame, frame and battery, and from the case of the regulator to the engine as well, all tested zero ohms. My next step is to wire a ground direct from the regulator to the battery. I'm on my 2nd "new" regulator, and it still doesn't charge. As for the relays, I'll check on those too. Also checked the wiring to the crank sensor, everything tested good as well. As for the adjustment, I followed the advise I found online at a different message board that said to fold over a piece of paper 6 times and used that to set the gap. How sensitive is that adjustment? I would assume all those things are working properly if all it requires is me to ground the field and it charges. Seems that everything is working as should, just isn't getting the signal to ground the field and charge as it should. But the alternator works fine. The crank sensor is brand new from the dealer. Thanks again for all the input, gives me some other quirky Dodge things to hunt through and check.

 

I would put money on the ASD relay. That's what receives voltage from the ECM then sends it to the alternator.

 

 

Does your A/C work? How about your Over Drive? Sounds like a bad ECM. Could also be your PCM is not getting a signal from the crank sensor. Check the wiring to the crank sensor, it real wears where it goes beside the belt and where it comes around in front of the head. Also check the sensor gap. Should be 0.050". A little close is better than a little far.

 

I'm getting voltage to the alternator, just nothing telling the regulator to ground and energize the windings to create a charge. So I don't think it's that relay, or it's been bypassed already if it was. As for the AC, the fan blows, but the clutch assembly has a plug with an end and no matching end on the truck side to connect it to, so no it doesn't work. Someone has chopped into the wiring a bit on this truck, so I know it has some gremlins that someone tried to circumvent. As for the crank sensor wiring, it's got a brand new sensor so the wiring on it is brand new too. I'll try to post some pics of the stuff when I get down there on Sunday to work on it. I'll take a look at moving the sensor closer, but it's a pretty tight gap now. Thanks again for the help guys. Seems like the PCM makes this a lot more complicated system than it needs to be. I miss my GM 1 wire alternator