The needle on my ammeter doesn't move at all, but the rest of the electrical system works just fine. So I pulled the gauge out and found that the thin wire that makes the needle move has left the building.

Can I replace this wire? If so, what gauge and which direction does it get wound (if it does get wound) around the needle post?

If it's unlikely to happen, anyone have one that will fit a 63 Valiant?

TIA

Address two issues in one go: send in your ammeter to R/T Engineering to be repaired and upgraded.

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SlantSixDan (aka:the Link Master) Answers a question I haven't even asked yet! This forum is amazing!-Thanks!

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1964 Dart GT

If you want to try DIY, the ammeter is not complicated - basically, there's a shunt, a perm. magnet under it, and another magnet on the needle.

In the mid-70's on, on some models, Mopar went to an underhood shunts and sent only 10-20% of the current through the ammeter. In many of those cars the ammeters never moved much, since the ratio of current flow was dominated by the quality of the connections. I increased the sensitvity in my '75 Coronet's ammeter by using a tiny piece of steel to redirect some of the magnetic flux; originally, I seem to remember ~8A through the ammeter on the test bench made it read full scale.

Do you have any pictures? I know about R/T Engineering, but I prefer to do things myself. I just haven't been able to find much information about repairing these gauges. Thanks

Sorry - I didn't think to take pictures at the time. The ammeters are all pretty similar inside, so you could probably find a junk one to practice on. The aftermarket ones I've taken apart seemed pretty similar inside, but more prone to melting plastic that the factory ones.

The only special advice I'd give is that the 10-32 nuts seem to get almost spot-welded in place and hard often very hard to remove. Forcing them breaks the stud free of the busbar inside, so I just cut off the leads as close as possible, and with the cluster out of the car use a Dremel 409 bit to cut the nuts off. I put new nuts on using a touch of Eastwood welding grease to prevent them getting stuck again. The R/T guys are 100% right that even resistance can be a problem, so I crimp and solder new lugs onto the leads very carefully.

The last time I got into the charging system I did same some pictures (the ammeter wasn't damaged and so I didn't take any pictures of it - sorry). I wanted the stock ammeter to work like stock, even with a high current alternator - see
http://www.tidewatermoparclub.com/TECH/ ... shunt5.pdf
for a few photos.