charging system blues
You can do this either way but you don't want to get "led down a road." You want to put the output line under a lot of power so that it will show up poor connections. This is why I check it with the field "full fielded" so that IF the alternator is charging you have a LOT of current going through the output
The functional path is shown in the MAD article simplified diagram:
Notice I said "functional path" I don't want to get into arguments about the direction of electron flow LOL
From alternator output stud........the TERMINAL on the BLACK wire.......through the BLACK wire to the FIREWALL CONNECTOR...........THROUGH THE CONNECTOR........to the WELDED SPLICE (up under the dash)..........to the WIRE TERMINAL at the AMMETER..........through the AMMETER.....out the WIRE TERMINAL on the RED WIRE...........back out through the FIREWALL CONNECTOR.........to the FUSE LINK.........to the STARTER RELAY STUD............through the BATTERY CABLE to the BATTERY.........through the GROUND CABLE and back to the ENGINE BLOCK.......to the ALTERNATOR GROUND
Notice there is lots of CAPITALIZED words. Each of those capitalized items is a possible TROUBLE SPOT. There's about 4 of them or so right at / in the ammeter. The two wire terminals can fail. The stud nuts can be loose. The ammeter studs can be loose on the ammeter shunt assembly, the "guts" of the thing. Any and off of these things constitute resistance and voltage drop
Checking this under heavy current flow will show up potential "hot spots," pun intended
Catalog
You can do this either way but you don't want to get "led down a road." You want to put the output line under a lot of power so that it will show up poor connections. This is why I check it with the field "full fielded" so that IF the alternator is charging you have a LOT of current going through the output
The functional path is shown in the MAD article simplified diagram:
Notice I said "functional path" I don't want to get into arguments about the direction of electron flow LOL
From alternator output stud........the TERMINAL on the BLACK wire.......through the BLACK wire to the FIREWALL CONNECTOR...........THROUGH THE CONNECTOR........to the WELDED SPLICE (up under the dash)..........to the WIRE TERMINAL at the AMMETER..........through the AMMETER.....out the WIRE TERMINAL on the RED WIRE...........back out through the FIREWALL CONNECTOR.........to the FUSE LINK.........to the STARTER RELAY STUD............through the BATTERY CABLE to the BATTERY.........through the GROUND CABLE and back to the ENGINE BLOCK.......to the ALTERNATOR GROUND
Notice there is lots of CAPITALIZED words. Each of those capitalized items is a possible TROUBLE SPOT. There's about 4 of them or so right at / in the ammeter. The two wire terminals can fail. The stud nuts can be loose. The ammeter studs can be loose on the ammeter shunt assembly, the "guts" of the thing. Any and off of these things constitute resistance and voltage drop
Checking this under heavy current flow will show up potential "hot spots," pun intended
Catalog