High Charging Rate. Found Voltage Drop Need Guidance Please

Mattax said

The ignition wire is disconnected from the ballast resistor.
Key off should be equal to all the wires at the key switch being disconnected.
View attachment 1715381217
That does leave a possible connection to ground. The voltage regulator still has a ground connection (mechanical) and possibly through the rotor too in parallel.
Disconnect the power into the regualtor (blue wire) and a digital ohmeter should MegaOhms or the same symbol it shows when the probes are touching nothing.

Click to expand...

@Mattax
Thanks much for the sketch. Sure saves me from an effort.

For clarity let’s start by labelling the various wires as identified in the ’65 Valiant FSM Wiring Diagram.

1. The 14ga brown wire shown at “Starter Ignition” is: J3

2. The 16ga dark blue wire at “Starter Ignition” is: J2

3. The IGN wire to the Regulator is: R5

4. The FLD wire from the Alternator is: R3

5. The run side of the Ballast Resistor: 2 wires joined: J2A J3

So the above establishes the “Stock” factory wiring.

The car is modified with Mopar Electronic Ignition ECU and Distributor. So an ECU power wire (Lt. Blue) was run to the ignition side connection of the ballast. Let’s label that wire: E1

Before any modifications J2 R5 E1 were joined together into a single crimped wire terminal plugged into the Ballast Ignition side. E1 was a soldered connection to the join.

Other than the voltage drop in J2 and by default also R5 the car ran well with no issues other than a resulting high battery charging rate. Thinking there was likely voltage drop in E1 also but apparently not enough to affect the ECU. ?

The co-joining of J2 R5 E1 at the ballast looked messy so the first modification I made was to separate them in the hopes that was the cause of the voltage drop. I connected each individually to a 3-way Piggyback plugged into the Ballast. No luck, still had the same voltage drop.

So I decided to modify further by installing a relay workaround as suggested by 67Dart273. J2 triggered the relay and out of “87” on the relay I have battery power. Let’s label that wire RL1.

So now my connection at the Ballast IGN 3-way Piggyback terminal is:

RL1 R5 E1 on a new Ballast Resistor

As per our more recent communications, Key On I saw smoke at the Ballast and bailed out. Didn’t try a startup but the car should start?? Unless another problem has surfaced. That’s when I started checking for other issues at the Ballast and got the Ohms reading at J2A J3 with everything disconnected at the ballast.

This morning I disconnected the battery positive and checked the J2A J3 join again and still got 22.6 Ohms. Wondering if that might be a cause of the voltage drop and the smoking ballast? Beyond me for sure.

Sorry for the long communique but at least there is now a clear view of the particular situation. Where to go from here?