wiring gremlins

[65Vart]

Ive been chasing some wiring problems today with my 71 Swinger. I noticed when driving the other night that when I turned the dash lights up, the temp gauge would peg, turn them down the gauge would return to normal. I went out tday to back it out of the garage and the battery is cooked, stone dead. Does not seem to be taking a charge either. any ideas would be appriciated. This is the second battery I have put in this car.

 

[RedFish]

You'll have to dig in and hunt the fault. Its somewhere between the back of the instrument panel and the fuse box if that helps.

 

[67Dart273]

You may have multiple problems

FIRST thing to do is make SURE everything is off in the car, including trunk, courtesy, dome lights, and yank out the lighter. Get a charged battery, and hook up only the positive cable. Take your test lamp and wire it in series with the battery ground. If you have a drain or a short in the car, the lamp will light

Pull all the fuses one at a time. If that shows up nothing, unhook the alternator output stud.

So far as your dimmer, this sounds more like a cluster grounding problem, to me

 

[BillGrissom]

Does "battery not taking a charge" mean you connected a charger to it when it was discharged and the charger said it was fully charged in a few minutes? That is what I see with a bad battery. I then stop at Autozone and let them test it in the car. You must get a multimeter to do any trouble shooting. I get them free at Harbor Freight and keep in every car.

The main way I can think that the temp gage could be affected by the headlights is bad grounds between the battery, engine and body. Check those, which means removed, inspect, sand, and reattach w/ dielectric grease coating. That would also explain why your alternator is not recharging the battery. It needs a good ground thru its frame to the engine then to BATT-, otherwise it can't output current no matter what the Vreg is requesting on the field.