Can someone help? I need to drive my dart tomorrow

Shaun65dart said
Thank you for your thoughts. I will do what I believe is best and I will FIX this situation I am dealing with.

It was only a suggestion, do what you want. From some of what you have posted that harness seems to have been hacked up pretty good. Sometimes "diminishing returns"

Shaun65dart said
Well, the field wire is now getting zero volts on the ALT and the VR. Like I said it seemed to be working then it smoked and hasn’t worked since. With the key off, the contacts on the VR stay open. As soon as the VR receives power with the key on, the contacts close. With the key on if I manually open the contacts, the field wire gets 12 volts

Thought this was almost fixed, starting to get frustrated

This sounds like a bad regulator. Kinda "the way it works" is that as voltage goes up the increasing voltage pulls the relay in, pulling the contacts open and dropping field current. Look underneath, there is a big resistor. When the contacts are open, the resistor reduces field current.

The replacement regulators are almost universally solid state. You can tell instantly by looking at the bottom. There is no large resistor(s) on a solid state replacement

Your electro-mechanical VR should look like this. A modern replacement will not have those resistors

Before you replace the VR it might be a fair idea to check the field current draw. There's a procedure in the shop manual