Need some help guys

[pnora]

Not necessarily spontaneous but there can be melt downs. Not always the ammeter but the rest of the poorly designed under capacity system.

 

[72RoadrunnerGTX]

Not necessarily spontaneous but there can be melt downs. Not always the ammeter but the rest of the poorly designed under capacity system.

View attachment 1575092

View attachment 1575093

View attachment 1575094

Are you suggesting the pictured wiring damage is the result of an ammeter failure? What I see is both the 12ga battery feed and alternator feed wiring show equal excessive current exposure well beyond what that circuit was designed for. Not seeing any signs of heating at the ammeter connections. Look to be tight and secure, handled the same current that burned the wires without issue.

The fact that both the battery feed and alternator feed wires are burned would indicate a short at the alternator or somewhere in the engine compartment harness between the bulkhead and the alternator. Real question would be, why didn’t the fusible link open, that is why it’s there, to protect against dead shorts on that charge circuit. If the ammeter had shorted, would expect to see only the battery feed burned, in an all stock system, the battery is the only voltage potential device that can melt 12 ga wires. Again, there is no indication of any ammeter connection heat at all. All I see here is the result of some kind of wiring abuse in the engine compartment, possibly a by-passed fusible link as a contributing factor.

I agree there could have been some better decisions made by the factory engineers/bean counters of the time, like by-passing those Packard terminals on the charge circuit at the bulkhead connector. Keeping in mind, these cars were never designed to be around this long. The system did serve its original purpose fairly well at the time if not abused. Still see all original, untouched, garaged kept, no added loads cars occasionally, their stock wiring/ammeter in perfect condition and operating as designed.

 

[pnora]

Are you suggesting the pictured wiring damage is the result of an ammeter failure? What I see is both the 12ga battery feed and alternator feed wiring show equal excessive current exposure well beyond what that circuit was designed for. Not seeing any signs of heating at the ammeter connections. Look to be tight and secure, handled the same current that burned the wires without issue.

The fact that both the battery feed and alternator feed wires are burned would indicate a short at the alternator or somewhere in the engine compartment harness between the bulkhead and the alternator. Real question would be, why didn’t the fusible link open, that why it’s there, to protect against dead shorts on that charge circuit. If the ammeter had shorted, would expect to see only the battery feed burned, in an all stock system, the battery is the only voltage potential device that can melt 12 ga wires. Again, there is no indication of any ammeter connection heat at all. All I see here is the result of some kind of wiring abuse in the engine compartment, possibly a by-passed fusible link as a contributing factor.
I agree there could have been some better decisions made by the factory engineers/bean counters of the time, like by-passing those Packard terminals on the charge circuit at the bulkhead connector. Keeping in mind, these cars were never designed to be around this long. The system did serve its original purpose fairly well at the time if not abused. Still see all original, untouched, garaged kept, no added loads cars occasionally, their stock wiring/ammeter in perfect condition and operating as designed.

Read what I said.

 

[Dusty Dude]

I bypassed the ammeter this morning and now I have power downstream. I will remove it at some time in the future and try and figure out what's up with it.
Thanks for the help y'all.
Mike

 

[PlymCrazy]

...I will remove it at some time in the future and try and figure out what's up with it...

I'd wager someone around here rebuilds them. Especially if it's an original item. Seems this place has someone or knows someone for nearly every aspect of our old rigs.

 

[72RoadrunnerGTX]

Read what I said.

Yea, I did pick up on a possible different meaning on a second read through, the last 4 sentences, beginning with “I agree…” of post 22 were added to address the “poorly designed under capacity” statement. Certainly, by today’s standards, the original design may be considered by some to be poorly designed. For the vast majority of the Chrysler products that came and went back then, it served its purpose without issues when it was left alone.