Is it a bad Voltage Regulator??

Hello all, I have been stuck with a charging issue for over a month now and decided it's time to ask my fellow A-body guru's,

I was driving one day and my car started to pop and buck. So I dropped it into 3rd to get thr RPM's up to clear it up. When I looked down at the ammeter it was drawing power from the battery. I quickly made it home with the engine struggling to stay alive with tons more pops out the exhuast and the car bucking I could barely pull out and coastedd through aboput 10 stop sign to make it home. There it died in the drive way!

I assumed it was an alternater or voltage regulator and maybe the battery. So I changed both Alt and VR propmtly " I wanted to drop the chrome ALT for a more original Alt anyway so I didnt mind the expense" But I still had no luck charging. So I decied to change anything dealing with the charging sytem and checking all the grounds at the VR harnesses etc. while I was at it I replaced. Alt,VR,ECM, Starter relay, new OEM starter&batt cable. Had the battery tested all good. Still NO CHARGE.

I Also went through retraced every wire in the engine bay to make sure no bare or broken wires exsited and that all connection are correct. " I think I can redraw the engine schematics in my sleep now" I also cleaned every bulk head connector and every connector to ensure proper connection. Still nothing :-(:violent1:

I then started pulling the dash apart testing everything. I pulled and disconnected the TAch, Aftermarket radio and guages. Checked all grounds and traced all wires against the schematics to esure all was connected correctly. Still no change.:protest:


So after pulling the dash apart running every test the book could throw at me plus some more I found online. I want back to thinking bad Alt or VR maybe I gt bad new ones as well? I returned a total of 3 Alt. and 2 VR. still nothing. I get no charge!!!!! Until...........
I decide to by pass the ground "green" wire from thr Alt to VR and there I got a jump of 17+ volts at the battery finally a positive charge but more than what I want! So I stopped immediatlely knowing that you should only read 14+. So I recleaned all of the case of VR and insured Is as properly grounded. and reconnected the VR again with no charge? So this time while the engine ran I made a jumper wire from my ground at the VR case/body to the actual ground wire running to my alt. With it plugged in to the VR I touched a bare section of the ground wire I got 17+ again! my question is = is this still a bad VR? and yes all body/batt, body/engine and engine/grounds are present and clean.

I miss driving my car please help!