I'm not sure how an alternator "shorts"

 

The alternator short could come from a worn winding on the armature.

 

If you elect not to do anything about it, I think the best policy is to pull all the breakers on the affected bus,

close the affected battery contactor and add things back until you find the problem or have enough up

without a problem.   Do all that before you turn on the crossfeed or you may wipeout your only good power

source too.

 

Anecdote: I had a Nissan Stanza one year with fusible link protection in the engine compartment.

One very cold night I moved the car about 300 feet but when I turned it off I heard some noise under

the hood.  I opened the hood and it was filled with black smoke.   I pulled all the breakers, no help.

I dumped a large fire extinguisher worth into the engine compartment.  No help, something was still

arcing.   While I was in front of the car the starter started cranking and almost pinned me to a snow

bankd.   Then someone had the sense to rip one of the leads off the battery.

 

When it was all over I had burned a 3" hole through a  metal fender and wiped out the wiring harness

all the way to the trunk of the car.  It was $2400 worth of damage (this was 20 years ago) and Nissan

never admitted any responsibility.

 

To this day, I do not know what happened.   but it does make me a fan of being able to isolate every

element of the circuit.

 

Colyn