Father, Son, and Grand Father project. 1963 Valiant

txstang84 said

I chased some voltage drop issues in mine a few times. The first two were faulty voltage regulators, after that was a bad ground (which I severely doubt you have based on how it’s fastened) and the last time I finally tracked it down to a 3V loss somewhere between the steering column and the bulkhead connector.

I didn’t feel like dorking around with it so I installed a relay straight off the starter relay to run into the ignition circuit bypassing the column wiring...totally not what I’d recommend anyone else do, but it’s my car and I was comfortable with that particular fix as it kept the voltage in check and I have zero problems with it after it sat for 5 years.

Click to expand...

Dads multi meter was jumping all over, so I’m going to check it with mine tomorrow.

We bypassed the amp meter and bulkhead completely and added two dedicated feeds into the passenger compartment.

The alternator is wired to the starter relay, which is fed by a feed wire from the battery. All 8 guage wires I believe.

We’re going to test the VR, and I will get the battery load tested, (it’s the optima out of my valiant).

I’m also going to do a voltage drop test through out the system, because a 1-1.5 voltage drop would cause this also.

The good news is that our wiring upgrades and headlight relays worked great. We have little to no voltage variation when the rpms change. It puts out great at idle.

I’ll keep ya updated. Thanks. Eric