[olddog]

Come to think of it, back when I was a puppy, I had a motorcycle that had a bad battery (by bad I mean shorted). I would use a small battery charger to provide voltage to power the coils and then kick start it. Then I could disconnect the charger and run it with no battery, as the alternator would keep power to the coils. I just couldn't let the idle drop too low.

So from this, I'm thinking the alternator has to tie to ground some how, even though I'm remembering the GM alternator/regulator system as only having one wire.