no power captain

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demoman3955

demoman3955

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so we started the car (69 valiant 273) and drove it into the garage, and decided to work on the dash that the last owned never finished putting back together. well we cleaned it up, replaced missing screws and what not, put it back in and now, for whatever reason get no power to the dash, ignition or even the fuse block. i found power to the interior bulkhead, but that wire goes to the dash loom and cant tell to where from there. any thoughts? :eek:ops:
 
Did you hook up the ammeter? The only two large wires under the dash are ring end terminals. I highly suggest you unhook the battery, or at least wire a test lamp in series with battery ground. If you accidently short the battery infeed to ground, you will have a mess

What do you have in the way of a service manual / wiring diagram?
 
well the batt was disconnected before we even started,and it was the last thing to connect. no sparks, smoke or anything to make us think anything was amiss. The lack of power to the fusebox is what gets me. the amp gauge was hooked back up, and ive looked at the service manual wiring, and its hard to tell anything from that
 
OK, start by reading this article..................

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

You could have trouble with the fuse link, or with the bulkhead connector, with the ammeter itself or it's connections, or what is known as the "in harness splice." This is a splice in the black ammeter wire a few inches down into the dash harness. Only way to tell is to try and eliminate other stuff, then untape the harness from the ammeter black wire down into the harness until you find the splice

Pay particular attention to the diagram below, which is from the article I posted:

Functionally, power comes from the battery (red), to the starter relay, through the fuse link, through the bulkhead, and to the ammeter red terminal.

Through the ammeter, power goes down the black ammeter wire to the big welded splice, and branches off to feed several items, including the ignition switch, headlight switch, fuse panel "hot buss" and maybe a couple of other things

Not part of this problem, but as explanation, the black continues on, back out through the bulkhead, and connects to the alternator output terminal

amp-ga18.jpg


WHAT I WAS getting at by using a test lamp is that if you happen to be mistaken about the ammeter being connected, or maybe getting to poke around in there, you can start a firestorm that is only protected by the fuse link, and that is damn poor.......protection that is

Since you had the panel out, my big suspect would be the ammeter and or it's connections. EVERYTHING goes through there

Your top suspects, somewhat in order are:

The fuse link, the bulkhead connector terminals, the ammeter terminals, the ammeter, and the welded splice.
 
Wow thanks for the info. The amp gauge was a bit tweeked and we did work on it so ill start there. Also now knowing all power goes through there gives me a good starting point. Thanks for the info.
 
THAT would be where I'd start.

Many amp gauges are what you might call "poorly assembled." Depending on the year, the studs are "sort of" rivited to the strip which "is" the shunt and main guts of the meter. If the studs lose connection, "so do you," so to speak.
 
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