Opinion's needed!!!

[69wannabe]

Ok, still working on the electrical system on my friend's 69 charger and have narrowed down that there is a voltage loss between the alternator gauge wiring. Basically on the battery feed wire to the gauge has battery voltage 12.6 volts and on the wire coming off the other side of the gauge my voltage reading is 11.4. The wires on the gauge are both tight and clean and 11.4 volts isn't a big voltage drop but before I cleaned and tightened up the wires on the alternator gauge it wouldn't start sometimes and it only had 9 volts at the battery wire from the gauge to the ignition switch. Got it up to 11.4 now at the ignition switch and it is not clicking and it is starting every time but i would still like to see 12.6 volts at the ignition switch battery feed. So my question is can I just cut the battery feed to the ignition switch and run a 10 gauge wire with a fuse link from the battery post on the starter relay to the ignition switch so it would have perfect battery voltage? I don't think by cutting the ignition switch battery feed and wiring it in straight from the battery itself will affect the charging system wiring but I would like a few opinions before I start cutting wires... The wiring under the dash of this car isn't perfect but it isn't awful either. I have seen alot worse.. Let me know what some of you wiring guru's think!!!

[Pete in NH]

Hi,

I think from your description you still likely have a problem in the ammeter area even though tightening the nuts on the studs helped a great deal. Those studs are only pressed into the conductor bars on the ammeter. Pressed in studs with a soldered connection would have been a better system. But, Chrysler never planned to have these things on the road for 40 years. Your are still getting a voltage drop and if the only current flowing is for the starter relay it's a big drop for so low a current. Remember with the car running and the battery charge and load of the car flowing , the drop will be much greater.

What you want to do only covers up the problem for the starting circuit. The trouble you are having is trying to tell you have a bigger issue to still be addressed. I would also look at the bulk head connector pins and make sure they are not corroded or burnt. You could try bypassing the ammeter for now and repairing or replacing it. I would try cleaning and carefully soldering the ammeter studs to the conductor bars of the ammeter should solve the voltage drop problem.

[69wannabe]

Thanks Pete, I was waiting on you to chime in. Have you ever heard of the voltage drop test where you put one lead of your meter on the positive battery terminal then the other lead to the feed wire on the ballast resistor and read the voltage with the ignition switch on?? My charger was a .11 which is good but my friends charger was 3.98 then after working with the ammeter I got it down to 1.5 volts. I know there are new alternator gauges that can be bought from the repro places but are they any good is the big question? My friend is going to check with Shannon(redline gaugeworks) and see if his original gauge could be rebuilt or repaired. I may can do some saudering on it myself and get the rest of the low voltage issue completely out of it. That would be nice!!

[Pete in NH]

That voltage drop test you described is a good one and that 1.5 volt drop is pointing to a problem somewhere. From your description either the ammeter studs as I mentioned or the bulk head connector pins.

[fy469rtse]

Do the amp meter bypass,, then look up an Australian gauge company , cheap and works exactly the same without the load that original gauges were wired, look for Dino's thread on retro gauge on here,
I used the face of my original gauge , looks factory and works the same , but as mentioned check bulk head plugs ,

[69wannabe]

I have tried to talk him into doing the voltmeter conversion but he isn't interested but that is one of the places where there is a real voltage problem on his car. I actually pulled my cluster today and have got it boxed up and ready to ship to redline gaugeworks to get the voltmeter conversion done on my charger. I feel like this will save me alot of problems in the future with my electrical system. I got a new starter that needs to be swapped out so while the cluster is sent off I am going to put the new starter on. Dread having to pull the header just to put a starter on but thats just the way it is. May be able to talk him into a new alternator gauge I guess, don't know how good that would be but it may be worth a try!!