Are you ready for a real weird one? Random NO spark from a MP electronic ignition system despite numerous parts swapped around...

[Kern Dog]

I am temporarily stumped.
One by one, I disconnected the connections to the dimmer switch, headlight switch, panel dimmer then ignition switch and each time….

I don’t know of any other unfused circuits. The stereo does have a constant power wire but it goes to the fuse panel.
In my 75 Power Wagon, I was losing charge to a voltmeter that I had wired to be hot all the time. This is a Dakota Digital instrument cluster that is powered by the auxiliary fuse panel:

The story continues another time…

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I am temporarily stumped.
One by one, I disconnected the connections to the dimmer switch, headlight switch, panel dimmer then ignition switch and each time….

View attachment 1813236

I don’t know of any other unfused circuits. The stereo does have a constant power wire but it goes to the fuse panel.
In my 75 Power Wagon, I was losing charge to a voltmeter that I had wired to be hot all the time. This is a Dakota Digital instrument cluster that is powered by the auxiliary fuse panel:

View attachment 1813237

The story continues another time…

Disconnect the big wire at the alternator....

 

[GTXDAN]

What about alternator/voltage regulator

 

[Kern Dog]

Disconnect the big wire at the alternator....

I have sometimes gone so far as to follow the principle when all the sensible methods have failed, it is time to try the UNsensible methods.
I'm paraphrasing but when I have tried numerous things and still found nothing, I'm absolutely willing to try other things.
The charge wire from the alternator is attached to the big lug on the relay. With it attached AND the 10ga wire to the interior OFF, the test light stays dark. I'd expect that to mean the problem is isolated to the circuits attached to that 10ga wire but hey...I'll try it. Hell....I'd never used the negative terminal this way to test this stuff. It is helping, thank you for that.
I wish that I could download another person's knowledge....

 

[Kern Dog]

Wiring at alternator disconnected.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

10 Ga wire I'm guessing is the fusible link? How about with the 10 Ga connected but disconnect one wire at the ammeter?

Also try unplugging the ignition switch connector

 

[Kern Dog]

10 Ga wire I'm guessing is the fusible link? How about with the 10 Ga connected but disconnect one wire at the ammeter?

Also try unplugging the ignition switch connector

* The alternator charge wire is a black 10 gauge, it connects to the stud with a fusible link at the end.
* The power for the interior is a red 10 gauge wire also with a fusible link at the end. It too attaches to the starter relay stud.
* The first wire that I removed from the relay stud was the one that goes to the interior. I removed it, screwed the nut back with the remaining wires still on the stud. From there, the test light didn't light up.
* I disconnected the 10 gauge from the alternator along with the CrackedBack relay harness wire and the 2 field wires for the voltage regulator while leaving the interior 10 gauge wire connected. The light came on.
* I disconnected the dimmer switch plug, the headlight switch, the separate panel dimmer and the ignition switch. Each time, I checked the test light and none of them made a difference. The test light still lit up.
* The car doors were closed each time I used the test light so it isn't the dome or console lights. Those are supposed to be fused anyway.
In 2015 I did shuffle a few things around when I changed the instrument panel but I'm pretty sure that I didn't wire anything to constant power.

I just remembered....The three UNfused power wires going through the interior are the headlight switch, the ignition switch and the wire going to the fuse panel itself.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

* The alternator charge wire is a black 10 gauge, it connects to the stud with a fusible link at the end.
* The power for the interior is a red 10 gauge wire also with a fusible link at the end. It too attaches to the starter relay stud.
* The first wire that I removed from the relay stud was the one that goes to the interior. I removed it, screwed the nut back with the remaining wires still on the stud. From there, the test light didn't light up.
* I disconnected the 10 gauge from the alternator along with the CrackedBack relay harness wire and the 2 field wires for the voltage regulator while leaving the interior 10 gauge wire connected. The light came on.
* I disconnected the dimmer switch plug, the headlight switch, the separate panel dimmer and the ignition switch. Each time, I checked the test light and none of them made a difference. The test light still lit up.
* The car doors were closed each time I used the test light so it isn't the dome or console lights. Those are supposed to be fused anyway.
In 2015 I did shuffle a few things around when I changed the instrument panel but I'm pretty sure that I didn't wire anything to constant power.

I just remembered....The three UNfused power wires going through the interior are the headlight switch, the ignition switch and the wire going to the fuse panel itself.

Does the car have a delay relay for an ignition switch light? Though popping out the fuses should eliminate that....

You mentioned
"One by one, I disconnected the connections to the dimmer switch, headlight switch, panel dimmer then ignition switch and each time…."
Did you leave the other items disconnected while disconnecting the next load? Or did you reconnect each load before moving to the next?

Remember this?

So, reverse the method... Pull all the fuses & briefly install one at a time.... If with all the fuses pulled you still have a draw the draw is on an un-fused circuit, also there could be draws on more than one fused circuit so if you pull one fuse at a time but the light stays on because of the second draw you won't know that pulling the first fuse had any effect...

And yes, you want to temporarily install each fuse, don't quit when you find your first draw.....
It's probably the only one butttttt....

 

[Kern Dog]

Does the car have a delay relay for an ignition switch light?

No, there is no ignition switch light.

Though popping out the fuses should eliminate that....

You mentioned
"One by one, I disconnected the connections to the dimmer switch, headlight switch, panel dimmer then ignition switch and each time…."
Did you leave the other items disconnected while disconnecting the next load?

The headlight switch and panel dimmer are disconnected and hanging. I tested with the light after each one but did as follows:
Dimmer switch disconnected, test. HL switch disconnected, test.....Panel dimmer disconnected, test while all three were disconnected. The last was the ignition switch, again tested while the others were also disconnected. Nothing there so far resulted in NO test light glow.
The fuses are still out too.

Or did you reconnect each load before moving to the next?

Remember this?

So, reverse the method... Pull all the fuses & briefly install one at a time.... If with all the fuses pulled you still have a draw the draw is on an un-fused circuit, also there could be draws on more than one fused circuit so if you pull one fuse at a time but the light stays on because of the second draw you won't know that pulling the first fuse had any effect...

And yes, you want to temporarily install each fuse, don't quit when you find your first draw.....
It's probably the only one butttttt....

The next thing I'll look at is to get the instrument cluster out and see how I wired the instrument panel connections. I'm pretty sure that I ran everything through fuses but maybe I made a mistake somewhere.

 

[kiwigtx]

I am temporarily stumped.

Have you been welding on this car with the battery connected .....?

 

[Kern Dog]

I reworked the wheel tubs a couple of years ago....

Increasing rear tire clearance in a '70 Charger.

I don't remember but I'm pretty sure that I thought to disconnect the battery. The more I think on it, I've had a very slow draw with this car since moving the battery to the trunk. I used to think it was due to the long cables but many new cars have trunk mounted batteries.
I have heard that you're supposed to disconnect the battery when welding but I've seen muffler shops just do the work without ever popping the hood on the cars.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

No, there is no ignition switch light.



The headlight switch and panel dimmer are disconnected and hanging. I tested with the light after each one but did as follows:
Dimmer switch disconnected, test. HL switch disconnected, test.....Panel dimmer disconnected, test while all three were disconnected. The last was the ignition switch, again tested while the others were also disconnected. Nothing there so far resulted in NO test light glow.
The fuses are still out too.

Well..... This sounds like a challenge...

Since you have a Dakota Digital dash, what happened to the wires off the original ammeter? Are they bolted together? Attached to a DD module?

 

[Kern Dog]

I'm pretty sure that I eliminated the one that went to the bulkhead connector and replaced it with the red 10 gauge, then split off from there to the fuse panel, ignition switch and headlight switch like the stock harness did. I'll get a better look once I pull the IP tomorrow. I wrapped most of the individual wires with masking tape and labeled them for easy ID.

You can see the long brake pedal and A/T shifter there....back before the 5 speed swap!

 

[GTXDAN]

The horn relay has constant pwr too.

 

[oldbee]

Jeez, coulda swore you were going to find a bleed coming through the alternator.

 

[Kern Dog]

The horn relay has constant pwr too.

I keep getting these oh, man…maybe THAT is the problem! moments and that was another one of them.
No difference. I’m in the dash now and can’t find anything obvious. This is one of the more frustrating things…I’m not one to give up but the patience is being tested.
This is a great time to replace the wiper pivots with them right in view.
I pulled all the bulkhead connectors from the engine side just to see if something was still making a connection inside and still, no change.

 

[Kern Dog]

Just to test Randy’s method, I did this to 4 other Mopars out back. None of them resulted in a test light coming on this way like the red car does. None have a radio with “constant power”, none have aftermarket gauges either.
The battery is down to 12.42 now. In 4 days it went from 12.56 to 12.42, a loss of .14 volts. If the discharge rate were linear, this works out to .035 a day or almost a half a volt in two weeks. This is while being disconnected. Add in the constant power for the radio and the drain adds up. This sure leads me to give the battery itself the majority of the blame. I’m still not sure why the 10gauge wire still results in the test light lighting up.

 

[Kern Dog]

I think that I found it. The stereo constant power wire is on the unfused side of the fuse panel. This is why pulling the fuses didn’t help and the issue was narrowed down to the one unfused wire on the relay. Now I need to reroute a couple of terminals since in error, I have a few things attached to the wrong side of the fuses.
Heck yeah!
The battery itself already loses charge but the draw of constant power only sped it up.
I would not have looked this deep if not for Randy, 1 Wild R/T.
Thanks!

 

[Geoff 2]

Fingers crossed!

 

[eldubb440]

Just to test Randy’s method, I did this to 4 other Mopars out back. None of them resulted in a test light coming on this way like the red car does. None have a radio with “constant power”, none have aftermarket gauges either.
The battery is down to 12.42 now. In 4 days it went from 12.56 to 12.42, a loss of 1.4 volts. If the discharge rate were linear, this works out to .035 a day or almost a half a volt in two weeks. This is while being disconnected. Add in the constant power for the radio and the drain adds up. This sure leads me to give the battery itself the majority of the blame. I’m still not sure why the 10gauge wire still results in the test light lighting up.

.14 volts