Ground wire short problem?

[slickster]

So after putting about 400 miles on my car after getting the eaton swap done at mo's the ground wire for the new alternator looked like it got really hot melted and bare wire sticking out. So I put a bigger gauge ground and that's been working. Just noticed the interior lights are flickering at night with hids on. Had a alternator check and it was good but the guy said i might have a bad ground somewhere and might help to have multiple ground running off to different places(hids radio etc) I'm also running a 500w amp. Any input please

[jwibbity]

It could be the alternator going out because its being spun the opposite direction, how many miles on the alternator did you have before getting swapped???

[RF Overlord]

Alternator doesn't care which way it spins.

As to the interior lights flickering, this was noticed by many people in the early days of the car and doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong.

[fastblackmerc]

Fix the wire and check all the grounds :dunno:

[03knight]

i also keep getting this issue, so far I have put 4 gauge wire to replace the small ground that trilogy gives you and it has melted the terminal connector on the alternator twice and just now melted the distribution block I had in place to connect the two smaller wires and the 4 gauge wire.. granted it was a pretty cheap distribution block so I ordered a new block and 0 gauge wire.. but what is the actual reason this is happening?

[BODYMAN]

Several different reasons could be the cause of ground wire melting or getting hot. the ground to firewall Melted all the way thru on mine so I added a larger ground & a 2nd ground to frt area of motor. Then looked around for cause & found the body was getting a positive charge from positive battery cable coming from the trunk ( it had small chaffing spot on cable). So lots of diff things could cause this. Electrical can be a pita some times.

[Turbov6Bryan]

Yes you can spin the alternator backwards and it puts out voltage, but spinning it backwards will overheat it. It's because the fan on the alternator is designed to pull air from the back across the rectifier, across the diode bridge and keep it cool.