Using Old Ammeter

[momoparman]

I'm swapping to a single wire alternator on my slant six and plan on routing the charge wire back to the battery. Old voltage regulator will be gone with this swap.

I'm also moving the original black alternator wire back that runs through the ammeter via the bulkhead to the battery via a fused connection.

Inside my plan was to tie the red and black ammeter leads together and by pass it but I was wondering if I could hook up my ammeter without burning it up? I'm not adding any load to the original wiring within the car.

The new alternator is 75 amp.

My after thought was that since I was re routing the charge circuit directly to the battery, bypassing the stock wiring route, I may be able to do this.

Input?

 

[67Dart273]

I'm confused about exactly what you are doing, that is, exactly how you are hooking it up

Have you read the MAD article?

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml

I'm gonna say "no" that ammeter will not handle 75A

You COULD fool around and add an external shunt, or Bill on here adds a pair of diodes as a sort of shunt.

I chose to say "eff it" and converted my ammeter to a voltmeter. This is not my idea, follow this thread, and read all three pages, as it covers several types of clusters

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=119480

 

[momoparman]

Yea I saw those a while back and the sunpro conversion looks like a winner.

I was just thinking since the only load running through the car would be what was in the car I may be able to use the stock ammeter. I even ditched the lighting load and am installing relays vs direct power through the light switch.
The load that the black wire carries would be far less than 30-amps with my modifications.

The ammeter would be hooked up as before its just the black (ammeter) wire would be fed from the battery as opposed to being fed from the alternator.

 

[BillGrissom]

You could, but your ammeter would no longer read the current flow into or out of the battery. I doubt you would ever see the needle move. If you want it still active, but provide a bypass flow, you could add a diode pair to your bypass wire in the engine bay. Not a 50 cent diode, but a careful design allowing for heat rejection. Lookup my posts about that if interested.