Dash Power Feed Confusion
I took a quick look at your postings and assume this is a '74 Dart Sport.
We've seen '73 Darts with electric defrost grids for the rear window with a differnt variation on the wiring your car has.
Assuming its a '74, below is the general scheme for standard power distribution.
The output wires from the Alternator and the Battery are joined with the feeds to the various circuits at a welded splice.
You can think of this as the power distribution point.
Most items use the chassis or engine block as the ground. The battery of course has connections to the block and the body. For the standard alternators, the housing is used, but these speciall 60 and 65 amp alternators sometimes had thier own ground wires.
Current flows like a stream. It flows either from the battery or the alternator to the main splice and then stream branches to whichever circuit(s) allow a return to ground.
Here's what it looks like we are seeing so far.
I'm not clear about the second black wire on the ammeter's stud (white arrow pointing to it).
Maybe I'm misunderstood your description of the wires joined, or is it a third as I sketch?
The white tag in the circle has the part number for the harness - so that probably can be looked up.
Let's redraw the sketch slightly so its more readable in terms of how it operates.
Even if the wiring connectoins on yours are a little different, the concept will be the same.
When the engine is running current flows to the junction on the ammeter's stud, then
IF the battery needs recharging, a portion of the stream splits off.
The rest of the current flows to the main splice.
The arrows in the sketch are illustrative of maybe 25 amps flowing in wire R6.
The ammeter indicated about 15 amps flowing through the battery for recharging. The remaining 10 amps are flowing through the ignition, alternator field, and whatever else is using electricity.
I took a quick look at your postings and assume this is a '74 Dart Sport.
We've seen '73 Darts with electric defrost grids for the rear window with a differnt variation on the wiring your car has.
Assuming its a '74, below is the general scheme for standard power distribution.
The output wires from the Alternator and the Battery are joined with the feeds to the various circuits at a welded splice.
You can think of this as the power distribution point.
Most items use the chassis or engine block as the ground. The battery of course has connections to the block and the body. For the standard alternators, the housing is used, but these speciall 60 and 65 amp alternators sometimes had thier own ground wires.
Current flows like a stream. It flows either from the battery or the alternator to the main splice and then stream branches to whichever circuit(s) allow a return to ground.
Here's what it looks like we are seeing so far.
I'm not clear about the second black wire on the ammeter's stud (white arrow pointing to it).
Maybe I'm misunderstood your description of the wires joined, or is it a third as I sketch?
The white tag in the circle has the part number for the harness - so that probably can be looked up.
Let's redraw the sketch slightly so its more readable in terms of how it operates.
Even if the wiring connectoins on yours are a little different, the concept will be the same.
When the engine is running current flows to the junction on the ammeter's stud, then
IF the battery needs recharging, a portion of the stream splits off.
The rest of the current flows to the main splice.
The arrows in the sketch are illustrative of maybe 25 amps flowing in wire R6.
The ammeter indicated about 15 amps flowing through the battery for recharging. The remaining 10 amps are flowing through the ignition, alternator field, and whatever else is using electricity.
