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Lord Sparky
Well-Known Member
Yep. You want to bypass. Many posts. Get crackedbacks wire from alt to starter relay.
No.
A myth widely perpetuated by the internet.
Perhaps because people mistakenly beleive that the battery powers the car's electical equipment. Automotive battery's primary purpose was for starting the engine. Once running, the alternator takes over.
Ammeters, which were very common on cars and trucks for many years, shows current flow.
The ammeter is located in the battery feed.
You can observe for yourself how much current is flowing through the ammeter under various conditions.
When the ammeter needle points toward D, that means the battery is Discharging.
When the ammeter needle points toward C, that means the battery us Charging.
Most Chrysler ammeters were calibrated to show 40 amps discharging to 40 amps charging. Center is zero.
You can estimate from that.
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From Chrysler's 1960 Master Tech booklet.
The wiring scheme changes slightly over the years but the overall strategy always used the ammeter in the same manner. It only shows battery discharge and charging. The 1976 a-bodies got a remote shunted ammeter. Instead of using a wide metal plate in the ammeter, most of the current flowed in parallel through a wire of known length in the engine bay.
This is a typical standard wiring scheme. Of course details vary with years and options.
Power to run the car is supplied by either the battery or the alternator.
If the alternator can not provide sufficient energy at approximately 14 Volts, its output voltage will drop.
The battery begins to assist when the its voltage and the alternator's are equal.
It takes over when its voltage is higher.
The wiring scheme changes slightly over the years but the overall strategy always used the ammeter in the same manner. It only shows battery discharge and charging. The 1976 a-bodies got a remote shunted ammeter. Instead of using a wide metal plate in the ammeter, most of the current flowed in parallel through a wire of known length in the engine bay.
This is a typical standard wiring scheme. Of course details vary with years and options.
Power to run the car is supplied by either the battery or the alternator.
If the alternator can not provide sufficient energy at approximately 14 Volts, its output voltage will drop.
The battery begins to assist when the its voltage and the alternator's are equal.
It takes over when its voltage is higher.
Well. I can't read your mind, so you'll have to describe what part or parts are confusing.
dano
Evil Handy Man
Won't fire and/or stay running or will not turn over?
Actually, it might. Doing so would be the same as one of the popular 'tests' to see if the alternator is working. People will disconnect the battery while the engine is running, to see if the alternator is working. It's not good to do that, but ....
Alternator's produce more power as rpm increases. So at idle they don't always produce enough to keep the engine and other stuff working. A common example is stopped at night in the winter with wipers and heater going.
QuickDart360
Well-Known Member
My dad worked @ a chrysler dealership for 16 years + and says he never heard of any incidents involving ammeter. Only thing that happened to me was Amp gauge burned the strip behind it but not the wiring or anything else. That was 1st time he says he saw that occurrence.
Not everything.
But some, like that statement, is misleading.
Because of that, their solution has its own flaws.
They also paint everything with one broad brush.
The melted ammeter they illustrate with a photo is a truck. Most likely a plow truck or truck with a winch.
Those pretty much have to be wired direct to the battery because of the current they draw.
The ammeters (and all of the connections) can get pretty abused with that type of use.
The alternator tries to supply power to the winch at 14 volts through the ammeter. It can't provide enough, so the battery doe sthe job. Then the battery needs a massive recharge. That goes through the ammeter. If the engine is idling, the current may be limited by the low alternator rpm. But if the engine is at anything much above idle, then it probably saw over 40 amps for long periods of time.
I've hooked up a battery on somewhat low in charge to a manually controlled charger. Supplied power at 14.2 Volts, the battery drew 35 amps. Photos here. As explained in the link, I quickly cut that back so as to not risk overheating the battery.
Chrysler had its own heavy duty wiring solutions. Why they weren't always implemented on plow trucks, etc. I don't know. When I drove mid 80s Dodge trucks that were fleet purchases I didn't know enough to explore the wiring. They never gave us a problem, but that may have just been the way used them or could have been because they the 'fleet' wiring. No idea.
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Just curious, what is there in this post to disagree with? It is straight out of the tech sheet, no opinion, just facts?
Well I certainly don't understand this one. He asked a question. He got several really good posts with good information and pitched a fit.
67Dart273
Well-Known Member
Depends likely on when those 16 years were. The newer and the larger platform cars went to external shunt ammeters. I've seen several "back in the day" (early 70's) and one was my own 70 RR WAY before Al Gore invented the internet, I drilled out the two big ammeter wires terminals in the bulkhead and ran larger wires "straight through" the connector. I had to take the cluster apart (plastic cluster housing on a 70 Ralley dash) and repair the loose ammeter terminals.
So far as Mattox comments, I see no reason to differentiate between cars or trucks. The circuit in the trucks was the same. Only difference in any car or truck, is the size of the alternator and the amount of load on the circuit.
Ma knew early on how to fix this----and didn't. Probably saved "her" about 5c per car
MOPAROFFICIAL
Oogliboogli
What was the question?
Headlight amplifier or relay the answer?
Headlight amplifier or relay the answer?
OP was asking if EVERYTHING electrical ran thru the Amp Gauge....It does not....
The reason I mentioned trucks was that trucks frequently had plows, winches, or other high draw accessories connected to the battery terminal. Certainly more frequently than cars. I was responding to the OP's tentative conclusion quoted in that post.
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