damn! to much to say LOL... I'll try to grabb the essentials of this without touch every post a lot

I'm not a Baseball big fan however I know who are the Aparicio's dinasty LOL. I'm more FOOTBALL fan ( the real one not the eggshaped ball one you play LOL ) and being my family from Spain, is kinda logic .

1... remove the bulkhead conectors is fairly tricky but still easy. Playing with that won't damage anything. Just need to pry up the side retentions while pulling out the conector once at a time. just do it and check the conditions... if something comes wrong will mean was to fail sooner or later so better fix it now before a biggest and expensive fail. Play with these plugs won't mean you are dealing with any terminal.

2... why are you worrying at this moment for a crimping tool and terminals if we don't know if you actually will need them ? although is not something hard to get, a nice one, that's not the ACTUAL deal on this... yet. Nice tools and correct terminals same as replacement plugs are around easy to get... is just about the money and click on buy... no need anything to be analized on this... yet.

3... the only way to know what is that or the other wire is trace it from end to end. In fact the only way to know what you got is dissasemblying. If you run the straight wire from alt to starter relay post you are bypassing ammeter and releasing loads from some spots but not fixiong actually anything. You are hidding the "fail" or whatever is wrong ( if there is really something wrong ). So you will be cheating yourself. Is like put a 150 speedo face decal over a 120 miles speedo to be able to say you are running at 75 MPH where you are really still at 60 MPH

4...
-I hate MADelectrical mods and statements... already pm'd you about that and why. Wrong statements from them and you haven't got burnt anything yet to drill out the bulkhead and heavily modify anything.
-Stock system can be run safelly with some touchs here and there, some small upgrades and still will work everything as factory designed... they were just wrong on the rates handled ( alt and terminals ) but not on the main design. Is just about IF YOU want to run your car like factory designed it.


5... need to note EVEN WITH A HIGHER OPUTPUT ALT, the stock system EVEN on bulkhead conections and not being bypassed up to the amm everything will be safe, at least safer than with the low output iddle alt. This sounds contradictory, yes, BUT a stock car on regular conditions road ( not rain, no AC and still at nights ) won't suck more than 25 amps. That load is able to be handled by the packard terminals easily. The problem is when the alt is not able to give this juice at iddle ( an oldie stock alt 35-40 amps rated barelly gives 15-20 amps iddling ). SO, when you give gas, the alt will gives what the batt lost on the previous stage. This will raise the ammeter up allmost to the max reading, some to still feed the car demands, some to refill the batt. IF you have an alt to give the car demand between 25-30 amps at iddle ( once again on regular basic car and road driving conditions ), the batt will never suck the load to be recharged, so EVEN THE STOCK packard terminals are able to handle this, BUT JUST with an upgraded alt feeding at iddle. Of course if you beging to increase the car demand, with wipers, heater or AC ( mostly due the blower, not the compressor ), this demand will be higher, and is when packard terminals becomes on a weak spot. Also when the batt got discharged, SO that's the reason to save the packard terminals setup with the bulkhead parallel path OR full bypass. And getting wipers and Blower working an alt able to source up to 45-50 amps at iddle is a must. That's why thats my advice on this. We need an alt able to source EVERYTHING on car if is required at some point. Sometimes a max wiper speed and max blower speed with headligths sucks up to 60 amps!!!! but normally if its raining dog and cats you won't actually need max speed blower on AC, because it should be a bit cold outside. Low speeds uses to be enough to save from fogging the windshield and rest of glasses, depending how many persons are in cabin