97 Charging System/Electrical Nightmare

[miss_my_aerostar]

I'm at my wit's end with this van. A week or so ago, I my battery light came on and the van soon ceased to run. It would run for a short time if jumped, but then died again. I had my battery tested and it came back OK, so then they checked the alternator, which came back bad. We bought a new alternator and put it in, but it still was not charging. Over the past three days, we have tried 4 alternators in the van from various sources and none of them have worked. We tested continuity on every fuse, every terminal, every cable and everything checked out. My mechanic and I even tried hooking cables to the alternator body and the positive terminal from the alternator striaght to the battery and it's still not charging. The weird thing is that the battery light is no longer on in the dash, but it does not even come on when all the other lights do for the test when i turn the key. We took the instrument panel off and tested the bulb and checked connections and everything check out. Please, if anybody can help me with this, let me know. My mechanic is about ready to give up and i'm running out of money. Thanks

[Blue Bowtie]

There should be a 10A fuse for the field in either the underhood electrical center or the interior fuse panel. There may also be a fuse link or MAXI fuse for the main power output to the battery (probably a fuse link). Since your jumpers directly to the battery would have bypassed any fuse link, I'd suspect the field power fuse.

[miss_my_aerostar]

Got it working tonight. As it turns out all i needed to do was replace the plug that goes into the alternator which completes the Battery Indicator circuit. Once the light was working, the alternator began charging. Thanks for the help.