Amp meter

[Turbobus]

yeap, but is interesting how 71 and 73 diagrams shows somehow diff ways to make it.

73 with the splice into the R6A line to still going throught the bulkhead ( with a fulse link too ) to feed the main splice ( edited diagram to show that ), while 71 diagram is more "simple" and a bit of lack of info on diagram

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As mentioned, it refers the factory bulkhead by-pass, commonly referred to as the factory “Fleet” by-pass as it is mostly found in fleet production (Police/Taxi) with a high output factory alternator. The matching engine compartment diagram is on page 8-128 in the ’73 Dodge manual. The original dash harness ammeter leads were to be cut and taped off with the factory by-pass. By the mid to late seventies the factory was quite aware of the weakness in the charging system design at the bulkhead connector. Especially on C-bodies (there were bulkhead by-pass recalls) and other high optioned cars running more electrical loads.

Agreed, plenty of discussions about the ammeter/charging systems here, do a search.
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I’m going to modify my harness to delete the questionable bulkhead connections. Everything looks pretty straightforward,
Remove A1B-16DBL, increase wire size from alternator to 8 gage etc, but my only question is, does pin 18 share R6-12BK, which will now be called R6-8BK, with the new R6C-12BK. Can the connection be made anywhere before the fusible link?
Do you know anyone that’s done this?
Please forgive my ignorance with schematics, might as well be trying to read Japanese!
Thanks, in advance for any help you might have.

 

[themechanic]

Is related to the wiring bypassing the bulkhead and going through the firewall with a grommet and more resistant terminals attached to the wiring than the Packard 56/58 terminals the bulkhead got, not the gauge itself

12 gauge wire os the regular size used with standard alts going through the bulkhead.

heavy duty alts used 10 gauge going through the firewall. Diagrams shows those too on discontinued line through the diagram.

there are several ways to make the same job though. This has been discussed several times lately. Sometimes being hardcore discussions.

Right. It seems to be a very "hot" topic. Ha, ha.

 

[72RoadrunnerGTX]

Yeah, that’s actually because the higher amperage alternators would overload the stock gauge. The 60-65 and 100 amp alternators push way more current than the amp meter was designed to handle, so they left those wires disconnected to avoid frying it. I had to figure something similar out when I upgraded the alternator on my old Charger.

The gauge wasn’t really built for it, and I didn’t want to mess with it. There’s a cool amps to kW calculator on allcalculators.net/online-calculators/electrical-calculators/amps-to-kw-calculator that helped me double-check the numbers. Really useful for avoiding issues when making mods like that!

To be clear, alternators of any size, do not push any current, current flow is drawn from the power source by the load. If the loading is correctly placed and is unchanged, upsizing the alternator does not increase current flow through the ammeter. The passenger car ammeters from this time period are verry stout and can handle quite a bit of current if the connections/insulators are not abused or neglected.

For the fleet by-pass, the dash harness 12ga ammeter wires were cut and taped off because the bulkhead terminations in the charge path are being by-passed with larger wiring.

 

[dadsbee]

^^^^ EXZACERY!! Turn everything off and ZERO amps come out of that alternator. Same nothing goes through the gauge on a well running machine... BUT.. have a voltage regulator stick or the power wire break off a '70 up regulator and you have full field and 18 volts burning stuff up..