New Member, New Duster

Chris Hernandez said

Ok so I got the car up and running! Somewhat. Had to jump the car since the battery was pretty dead. Once car was warm amo meter was dead center. Ran for about 20-30 minutes. As soon as I pulled in driveway it turned off. Only way to turn it back on was jumping. It is a pretty old battery but once car was warm voltage was ready 12. Something from the battery. Also, now amp meter is ready +40 This was after replacing battery wiring, starter, alrernator. Have a new VR but have not replaced yet. Waiting for ideas.

This little white thing is also very very hot. Is that normal?

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Sounds to me like your battery isn't holding a charge. A good battery should read 12.6 v when charged, after 30 minutes and with the ammeter showing no significant charging discharge the battery should have started the car again.

The white thing in the picture is a ballast resistor. It steps the voltage down for the ignition, it does that by converting electricity to heat. It should be dropping about 6v across the ballast, and they do generate heat so they can get hot. If it's getting "very very hot" there could be something going on, but if you ammeter was just pegged out your voltage may have been high too, which may have caused the excess heat.

What was the voltage showing when the ammeter was showing 40+? Could be the VR needs to be replaced too. Also, if you have a brand new alternator and are using the old style VR that might be an issue, I believe some of those newer alternators are supposed to have the newer VR's as well. But I am not the electrical guru here by any means, I give that one to @67Dart273