Oh yeah, I forgot about that article.
Did you have this issue on your 81?

 

no. 81 i believe would be the first year it came from the factory with it already wired like that.

 

Oh, that figures. lol

Why do I have to use a fusible link? Why not just run a straight wire to the starter battery wire?

 

it is a good idea to stick a fuse in there. i think fusible link wire is just old tech that was hard to replace. an alternator putting out 65 or 100 amps would require a decent fuse and i don't think they quite knew enough about fuses to make a fuse that would last under those amps that was reasonably priced.

 

I went out and took a look at it, found some other stuff to fix. Took pictures, I'll post them here in a minute.
I was looking at it and I think I can totally do this. I just don't know what alternator is on it. I guess a 100amp? Then again, overkill is not really a problem, I just need a good fuse. 6 ga and a 10a fuse is what I'm looking at, right?

 

from the pics of your truck that i have seen i think you have the 65 amp alternator. you could probably still use 6 ga wire if you want but it might be a good idea to use the 14 ga fusible link wire.
this is what a 65 amp alternator looks like

 

That looks pretty close. Can I use 10ga wire with a inline fuse?

PICTURES!

The fat wire is the battery-to-starter relay wire, right?


This is something I found when poking around...it has a 15a fuse in it and it is barely connected. lol


It's the brown wire going into the firewall...



I also thank you for your continuous help.

 

you could probably use 10ga wire but i don't know about a inline fuse. not sure if you could get one in the 70 amp area. now i am not sure if what that inline fuse is for since i am pretty sure it is not factory. i would maybe guess that it could be constant power for something like a stereo since i think it would originally only have ignition power. isn't that a brown wire near were the stereo should be?

 

Blast, I didn't think about it having to be that high amp a fuse. Could I just wire it straight? I mean, it's already going to a relay and all.

Yeah, it's not factory, it has a 15a fuse in it. And I have no idea if that's where the stereo would be, there is so many colors of wiring used on this damn truck it's not even funny. I guess I could fix the connection then pull the fuse to see what goes away.

 

well you could but if the alternator decides to send out to much power you wont have a fuse to protect it. now saying that i got to admit i don't have any protecting my battery or wiring. i noticed the someone did a poor job replacing the fusible link from the alternator so i just completely removed it. now knowing how your truck is wired and how my truck is wired i think it would be a good idea to use some type of fuse. you can buy fusible link wire. its not that expensive. you have 1 main power wire into the ignition that splits to everything were mine has 3 power wire and all those are run through fusible links under the hood. those fusible links would save most of my wiring if my alternator decided to send out too much voltage