I'm confused. Perhaps someone with more experience will read this and know what's wrong. My truck has the Plan B Mod -- no DUVAC, 24V lower alt, 12V upper alt. It also has the Doghead relay mod.
Here are things I know for sure: A battery terminal clamp failed -- it just broke. The starter fried itself. The 12V upper alternator fried itself. Something fried the Glowplug Controller card.
I replaced the broken battery terminal clamp, and had the starter replaced. When I had the truck towed to the shop for a new starter, the glow plug controller was fine. When I picked up the truck with its new starter, the glow plug controller and the 12V upper alternator were fried. I can't know for sure when the upper alternator died.
It may be that the alternator died first, and the starter failed because the front battery was depleted and the starter saw too little juice. Or maybe the shop did something to fry the alternator and GP controller. They deny this, of course.
When the upper alternator dies on the M1010, there are very few symptoms. The voltmeter continues to read 24V. The only real symptom is that the turn signal blinks more slowly, but by the time that's noticeable, the batter is pretty well depleted.
So the front battery got pretty heavily discharged, down to 11.8V. It sat that way for a few days in a parking lot while I waited for the new alternator to arrive. When it arrived, I drove to the truck, put jumper cables on the front battery and left the rescue vehicle running while I swapped out the alternator. The front battery was disconnected from the truck while I worked on the alternator. It was only connected to the jumper cables. By the time I got the new alternator in, the front battery was up to 12.5V.
I reconnected all the cables, and the truck started right up while still jumped. It took a little extra cranking, since I had no glow plug controller, but it started. Then I drove about 90 min on the interstate. The front battery then read 12.2V with the engine running. I read 66 amps from the upper alternator, with the engine idling. This from a 160A Leece Neville 110-555JHO. It's a 1190 amp-hour battery. 1190 amp-hours would take 7.5 hours at 160 amps. I drove for 3 hours and the battery was up to 12.5V. I put it on the trickle charger for the night.
So far, I've replaced the broken battery terminal clamp, wrapped a number of layers of electrical tape over a bare spot in the starter cable insulation, replaced the starter and the upper alternator. I use no-ox-ide on all the power connectors.
The mechanic who replaced the starter assured me the starter cable is in good shape, and did not need to be replaced. I'm planning to replace it anyway. I suspect the heat from the exhaust combined with old age caused the insulation to fail above the starter. I taped it thoroughly, but that's not a long term solution.
Tomorrow I'll take if for another long drive. If the voltages still look OK, I'm thinking it's probably safe to install the new GP controller. I'm reluctant to plug in my new $150 glow plug controller without understanding what fried the old one, and without confidence that the underlying problem is fixed.