Ammeter bypass turning over alternator

Mattax said
You followed bad advice.
Lets move on.

First. What do you mean by 'not charging'?
If the ammeter is showing discharge while driving, then the alternator circuit is not providing power.
If the ammeter is showing no charge while driving (needle straight up), everything is normal.

The ammeter is in the battery feed/charge line to the main splice.
Heavy (12 gage) black wire to the firewall is power feed from the alternator.
View attachment 1716410652
Notice the power from the alternator does not go through the ammeter except when the battery needs to be recharged.

Bypassing the ammeter leaves you blind. So if there is no damage, connect it back up. Make sure no bare conductor touches ground metal. Depending the instrument panel, there very well may have been insulating washers used. All of theose wires are connected to the battery positive and the only protection from a short is that fusible link.

You can look at the firewall connections for damage. However a failure in the alternator circuit is probably something more basic. A bad connection or failure in the alternator or regulator.

One of this first things I did was put a new voltage regulator in it. I have power to everything however the battery does not charge. The motor is a 360 that has been built to a 408. Electronic ignition. No points. Automatic transmission. The only thing that I have added was a retrosound head unit radio. A replacement main dash speaker and 2 small kicker speakers under the dash on either side. For the power leg I tapped into the red leg going to the ignition so it will shut off when the car turns off. I have the same voltage at the battery and starter relay, had power going to the regulator when key in run position. I had roughly the same voltage at each lug of the ammeter. The alternator appeared to be putting out power. However with the engine running one thing I did notice was with the alternator the power was jumping all.over the place. One spot it'd read 13 then it'd drop to 3 for half a second then come back up. Only constant was power on the battery terminals because it wasn't charging just draining. I plan to do more diag when I get home later.