How many are using the factory amp meter

[67Dart273]

You can disagree with us, but we're not full of crap. It's just like Pete and I said in different ways. You'll have to come and see for yourself. The ammeter still tells us basically what we want to know from it, whether the battery is discharging or being charged.

High beam vs. low beam is only a small difference in power needs (on 2 lamp system).

You are trying to argue, here, with a guy who knows how this stuff works. Pleauz.

How many compromises are you willing to make?

First you add headlights to the wrong side of the tracks

Then it's a fuel pump

Cooling fans

A Great Big stereo remote amp.

Driving lights

Big heavy head lights

Pretty soon you've got the ammeter showing a 30A charge and it's well, it's NOT

How in HELL does that tell you anything?

You are trying to argue here with a guy who LIKED ammeters. But it's time to move on. IF IF IF you are going to go through one of these cars and completely bring the electrical terminals in the bulkhead and the ammeter up to "new"

and IF IF IF you do not add anything to the car, and if you don't run a big alternator you can "get by."

So you can go back and forth all you want, I don't care. But I will stick by this. If you are going to start putting loads on the wrong end of the ammeter, you might as well take a hammer and beat it out of there, because it just became useless

 

[str12-340]

Ammeters are from an age when drivers actually knew how their cars worked and having the gauge told them when and if something malfunctioned. Voltmeters are useful but much more of the age of idiot lights that tell you something is wrong way after the horse has left the barn and the damage is done. If you fear the original gauge, you can always get a new ammeter, and you can run the wire through a grommet in the firewall, not the bulkhead connector - that way you can still use the connector as was intended for the other dozen wires in the system.

My 2 cents...