I seen that it is marked red below the passenger side post. Thanks for the heads up. The only concern I have is that the nut is pretty rusty and won't make good contact
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Be carefull, the nuts on the back of the cir board hold the guage to the cir board.
Ok, I checked the continuity and it appears that the amp gauge is bad the display on the multimeter didn't change. So can I use these wires and pigtail them to an aftermarket amp gauge without any issues? I am not really wanting to tear into the cluster just to replace the factory gauge.kthose ammeter studs are insulated from the gauge cluster by fibre and plastic washers and a plastic sleeve
back of gauge---nut----fibre washer----plastic washer with sleave (like a top hat bush) into hole in gauge cluster back ----plastic washer---fibre washer-----nut leaveing the stud end for you to bolt the wires to, sticking out
In most cases those studs also mount the gauge in the cluster
if the meter is overloaded it gets hot and if the plastic melts the ammeter shorts...
just continuity check between case and stud to see if its OK.
if its not....get new inuslators platstic washers with sleeves from digikey or similar
and no harm in some heat shrink on the stud as it passes through the gauge cluster as well.
test it by putting it in circuit with a headlamp bulb, using thinish wire on your car battery....needle should twitch to about 3 amps. obvioulsy if there is a problem the wires will melt.... be aware of this before you test
when installing use a spikey washer of appropriate size either side of the eye on the end of the wires, the orginal brass nuts if you can, so the spikey washer gets some bite, and a dab of soft locktite or some enamel paint on the threads.
too strong on the locktite and you will wind the stud out next time you try to remove it and that really does break the ammeter
OOPs should have read the previous post before writing all this
apologies...its done now
Dave
Please excuse my ignorance as I am trying to learn about the electrical functions (electrically challenged) lol. I just have the cheap harbor freight multimeter and I followed the directions I found online. I put it on the settings as directed touched the 2 leads together to check goes to zero. Now when I check the gage like you said the reading does not change so should it go to zero or hold. Sorry not trying to be a pain
Great minds think alike
The amp guage will read about the same as when the test leads shorted together.
you really need to do an internet search on use of a multimeter. There are books written. Different meters are different, the short story:
because of the issues with the factory gauge and the fact that I think that to have a finger on the pulse of your electrical system you need both an ammeter and a volt gauge, I have left the factory ammeter in place (disconnected) and put an under dash set of gauges in each of my Darts - volts, amps and mechanical oil pressure. If your charging system fails, a voltmeter will let you know that you are screwed after the voltage drops someplace that is below what you need, whereas the ammeter will show eratic or inappropriate charging well before your car is dead on the side of the road. The voltmeter is effective in detecting battery voltage that is too high or too low and allows you to try and address it before disaster strikes. My under dash ammeters are connected to those two wires - pull them down and see if they will reach were you want to put the gauge. No pigtail is needed, just use the original ring connector. You might have to cut some of the black harness wrap to get the length that you need.
Hello sir,
The entire reason for converting to voltmeter is to help solve the problem of small wiring and bulkhead connector, along with the ammeter itself. "If I live long enough" and I may not, I hope to somewhat duplicate the external shunt type setup used in the 76 A bodies and earlier C barges in some cases.
