In my experience, the 55 amp alternator in place of the 70 amp alternator will work, however it has its limitations. I have an 84 244DL and I made the mistake of going to Autozone and buying a replacement alternator. The high school kid pulled up the info for my car and says "I've got one in stock." I purchased the alternator without any questions. After some issues with the battery dying on me after the new alternator was installed, I did some research and found out that I needed the 70 amp. Turns out that I can't run all of the electrical accessories on my car at the same time or else my battery runs down because the alternator can't keep up with the power consumption. At the advice of a fellow Brickboarder (Art Bernstein I believe), I purchased a cigarette lighter voltmeter. I have this plugged in all the time to monitor the voltage on the battery. I installed a new Sony CD player in my car a few weeks ago in preparation for the 1300 plus mile drive I had last week from Ohio to Texas. During that drive, I monitored the voltage and it fluctuated between 13.6 volts to 14.1 volts during the drive. As long as I keep an eye on the voltmeter, I can make sure that I'm not using too much voltage from the alternator.

As far as the interchangeability between the 1980 and 1992, I would suggest going to Autozone or Advance Autopart's website (or another autoparts website) and looking at the part number listed for the replacement alternator for both the 1980 and 1992. Compare the two and if they are the same, then I would think that they would be interchangeable.


Matt