Alright, let me tell the story: Was driving home from work about 3 months ago and the car lugged, dash lights went nuts, and a small bit of white-ish smoke came in through the air vents. I did a visual and nothing seemed wrong, but from that point on the e-brake and battery lights would turn on when the car would dip into low RPMs.

I took the car to Advanced Auto and they put a battery tester on it, told me the battery was fine and that the alternator was messed. I drove on it until this weekend when, on Friday, the alternator completely gave out and I limped the car to work on no working guages. I get the new alternator in and everything seems okay. It roll started just fine, no problems, I drove it for about 3-4 minutes and parked it, went to work. On the way to work everything in the car dimmed and the guages went dead. The clock was dimmed out, etc.

After work I had to roll start the car again, and after 1-2 minutes misfiring, lugging, and then it eventually just cut out. I rolled it to a nearby house and had it jumped. It took forever to get enough juice into the battery to even start the damn thing, then the same thing 1-2 minutes and it died. I ended up having to have my friend tow me home with his 96 jetta. low point in life for sure.

I'm taking the car battery into AutoZone to get it tested/replaced if necessary in the morning, but I have 2 questions.

This was my first alternator install, and when I was re-attaching the (I believe) ground terminal to the battery, the terminal on the replacement alt was different than stock, so the terminal is between two brass/gold-plated nuts, instead of all the way down on the terminal. is this a problem?

And secondly, the plug that attaches to the alternator have bare wires showing, and in an attempt to remove it and put electrical tape around them, it looks like a pulled/frayed one of them a little. I can't find this part online and have no idea what it's properly called. I am handy with electronics and wiring, and could easily recut, strip, crimp, and solder that connection again, but it seems like it's still connected-if it isn't would that be a cause for dead car despite the shiny new alternator?

Thanks for sitting through the whole post, and I appreciate any help you can give.

Sincerely,
B. from NC