Ammeter bypass

[twodko]

I spoke with a guy today.....MOPAR only shop..... To get some niggling things done on my car one of which is bypassing the ammeter. He's says he sends it out and it's converted to a volt meter solving the issues of high current through the old ammeter....read fires......and having a functional gauge.

Real deal guys? How much should I expect this to cost west coast money?

[cdr]

i would say 2.5 hours labor + the gauge! its easy to do !

[WHITE AND RED 69]

I paid Redline gauge works to convert mine and put it back in myself. It was about $150 and that included painting it white, so it should be a bit cheaper keeping it black. I sent in the cluster housing and it took about a week and a half including shipping.    

[mhinders]

If you have a look inside the original ammeter you can see that nothing is going to burn in it.
Here is what the 1967 ammeter looks like inside: -The current is flowing thru the solid U-shaped metal piece, nowhere else.
I can promise you, something else is going to burn before the ammeter!

[cdr]

the problem is it gets hot & the insulation gets bad & shorts out against the housing & the wires get very hot & before ya know FIRE 

[Back N Black]

If you have a look inside the original ammeter you can see that nothing is going to burn in it.
Here is what the 1967 ammeter looks like inside: -The current is flowing thru the solid U-shaped metal piece, nowhere else.
I can promise you, something else is going to burn before the ammeter!

I agree, i had about 15 gauge clusters over the last 10 years and not one of the amp gauges were burnt??

[cdr]

i have seen 5 burnt,,,when i took my 68 apart it was roasted----------------bottom line is ,one burnt car is one to much 

[twodko]

I appreciate your input mjinders and its true.......nothing in the gauge will burn its everything after it that will.

[bill440rt]

I had Redline do my cluster was well, white face conversion also.
If you just want the ammeter/voltmeter conversion I think that was just about $100 bucks by itself? They were very good, and a very reasonable turnaround.

[twodko]

Morning Bill,

I don't know where they send gauges too but this shop is "the" go to MOPAR shop in my area.  My only concern is whether it will look brighter and cleaner then the existing ones. The others are in great condition.....no fading etc. withnthe few other small fixes I can't afford to redo them all. We'll see.

[HeavyFuel]

The title is a little misleading.......maybe should say Ammeter Conversion.

No matter...have you considered doing the actual bypass as described in other posts (to truly reduce the risk of fire), in addition to the conversion to a voltmeter, which by itself really doesn't address the problem?

[mhinders]

the problem is it gets hot & the insulation gets bad & shorts out against the housing & the wires get very hot & before ya know FIRE 

It only gets hot if you have a loose connection/corroded connection or similar, something that creates a resistance in the path of the current flow.
Without resistance, no heat can be generated, that's the law of physics.

[Hard Charger]

My 72 Challenger had a charging problem for years. The battery would die every couple of weeks. I thought it was because i was not using that car much. It was getting embarrassing getting stuck with a dead battery.

I finally got fed up with it and went to a electrical repair garage and he found that it was because my factory ammeter had burnt out. The needle had actually fallen off and sits a the bottom of the gauge.

The guy bypassed the meter and put a wire from the alternator to the battery. I paid about $150 including a new regulator.