04 Sequoia’s 150 amp Alternator Swap on a 00 Tundra + The 3 Big upgrades

Just wanted to thank you for this thread. It solved a camper battery problem i had, and it worked really well, first time.

 

I just saw your post Shifty & Id say your right there is "more" to it there.
But so much has changed now Toy surely regrets that early decision to shrink its stock in Denso for elect's.
With oil industries moving forward again, our killing the 2035 deadline bill for EV's here & Russia standing over top of the huge Lithium deposits in Ukraine? Id have to say Toy deeply regrets doing that already.

 

I’ve asked before, but i think i asked the wrong question, whats wrong with a HO 250A or 330A alt? If i barely load a 100a 99% of the time, but only run heavy loads on the other side of the battery, like jumper cables or a winch? With a big 3 or 5 or whatever. Mr.bee had a contact that make kits here on the forum. Rebuilt HO alts make extra heat? Extra voltage hurt the trucks delicate copper bits, even if the load is seperate? Is there a way to put a knob on the dash to limit it?

while researching how to change and arrange the poles of a brushless washing machine motor, i learned i can make it powerful & slow or fast & ‘soft’. Same with using is at a generator, move the poles whether i wanna generate @ low rpm vs high rpm… is that what they’re doing to fit more amps in the same space?

 

They're putting more wraps of copper around the windings, and using more powerful magnets. I'm just guessing on that. I don't fully understand how a car alternator works but that's basic generator stuff. You basically spin magnets around the rotor and it generates an electric field on the magnets in the stator. What comes out is AC so it goes through a DC rectifier and bam, DC electricity. So I'd imagine they have a beefed up rectifier and voltage regulator as well. Again, I'm not an expert but that's my theory.

 

new phone, i cant find the journal i was reading, but for a 42 pole motor there were a buncha ways to wire it. Like 3x14 or 7x6. Deltas, stars, crooked shit. Its a very deep rabbithole. Are our alternators ?16? Poles than can be manipulated? Like 2x8 or 4x4? 16x1?

sorry, thats called idle free time running amuck. If i’m gonna juryrig a 150A onto my truck, just wanna know why 300A wouldnt work just as long as you werent using all of it, all the time.

 

See, that's where I'm not sure. I only know 1 phase and 3 phase stuff when it comes to motors, but a motor and generator are basically the same thing.

So a 300A alternator is just what it's rated at. It'll put out 14.4v all the time, and only "produces" amperage when there's a load. Think of it this way: that 15A receptacle in your house has 120v on it all the time. It'll "produce" whatever amperage it needs to depending on what you plug in. After 15A it'll burn up. Kind of a bad analogy since the plug isn't making power, but you get the gist.

 

I did this alternator swap yesterday, 150 amp from a 2006 Sequoia. Did not do the B3U though (will do it eventually).
Started up, all was good, battery charging at 14.1V. Let it run for a while, turned on AC, headlighs, etc.... all was fine. And then eventually, when the engine warmed up it stopped charging and went to 12V and started decreasing.
Did the following checks:
1. Checked the grounds resistance. 0 ohms.... cleaned them up and tighten well
2. Checked resistence from the alternator to the engine, to the battery posts all 0.0 ohms... just one maybe had 0.001ohms or something
3. Checked all the small fuses (engine bay fuse box) and the alternator 120A fuse. All good.

Was midnight.... and left it.
Will try to troubleshoot it today again.

Any ideas what can it be?

I guess I'll try to compare side by side the wiring diagrams for my 2001 AC Tundra (left) and the 2006 Sequoia (right) and ensure the controll wires I connected are correct.

 

Given you went from a 3 pin connector to a 4 pin, definitely take a good look at the colors and pin #'s.

 

Oh man, you are awesome. How do you match these connectors to the wiring?

Thanks a lot.

 

Your Welcome….but is that an actual ?….not sure what you mean.

 

I mean how to navigate the Toyota wiring diagramms
I'm used to Honda ones, and they are awesome. You click the connector and immediately displays the pinout with numbers, colors, description.
For example:


Super easy, right?


But on Toyota, it is crazy... find one, then search through the doc for some code/number which is in tons of other pages untill you maybe lucky to stumble on the actual connector And then go figure what each pin means...

Just a rant..... thanks for help.

 

Yeah, Toyota EWD’s are not for the faint of heart by no means. It helps when the EWD’s have a good Table of Contents on the left side, which I’ve fixed on our 1st Gen’s on the ones I’ve downloaded from our elec forum here.

 

Wel, I don't know. Wiring was good, all good. Randomly it just started working fine
The only thing I could think of, is just some connection was loose, and me fidleing around checking things fixed it.