Bear with me with the ramblings at first...
12 years ago I bought a -70 Duster that didn't have a engine compartment wiring. Bought it and a hood from a rusted -70 Valiant. The car had been through many owners prior to me (it had been roadworthy last time 9 years before that). Someone before me had started to upgrade the ignition system with putting a newer dist and control unit. So with wiring diagrams from a -73 Chassis Service Manual and Chilton's manual (yes I know now, don't freak out about the Chilton), me, and my buddy that knows more about reading diagrams, tackled the wiring and put a dual ballast resistor there and had the car running and so it's been for the past 12 years. Come present day and I start searching on Slant6Forum for answers (it's easier with internet nowadays). So I stumble across an address to mymopar.com and print out both the -70 and -73 Valiant diagrams to trace once more all of the wiring, but behold there's something odd...
The -73 diagram from my CSM and the one from mymopar.com has discrepancys. CSM says the DGN/R* should go to the upper/right connector of the dual ballast resistor and + from coil to lower/right connector BUT mymopar's diagram shows the opposite. Remember that I have a -70 car so it has not the right connectors, I just use simple female spade connectors.
And what does Alternator Indicator mean (in mymopar's diagram)? Or is that just another word for Voltage Regulator? The LBL/Y* and DBL wires are also on different places!
So which diagram should I rely on?? Somehow I don't feel confident with mymopar's chart at all...

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

Aargh...I'm going crazy. I don't know how to interpret the diagram. It seems that it is somehow an mirrorimage or upside down. All the wiring in the control unit seems to be counterclockwise to the diagram in the CSM. I'm at my wits' end with this one. Please advice me, how should I read this correctly?

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

Checked out how the wiring is done in my -73 Valiant and came to the conclusion that I can't rely on these diagrams... The 5-prong wiring goes exactly the same way as in my Duster, neither of the diagrams are drawn this way

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

Chiltons and such, as you are finding out, are basically useless other than to possibly replace the Sears catalog in the outhouse. Get youself a real factory service manual. A printed copy is best but an electronic copy will do as well. Personally, I have both. Also, do a search on wiring diagrams here on the site; Dan has posted a link to some free diagrams a couple of times. I've looked at them and they are adequate but I think the FSM diagrams are better.

_________________
David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

'dakight' - I have the original Chrysler Chassis Service Manual (CSM) for -73 Plymouth/Chrysler/Imperial, and as SlantSixDan suggested in an earlier post - "Follow MiDi's links to decent free wiring diagrams." - and that was: http://www.mymopar.com/downloads where I got the other diagram .
And that's where the problems arise. Neither of these are drawn as in my opinion would be correct. Iv'e looked at the wiring going from the Electronic Ignition Control and the Dual Ballast Resistor in my -73 Valiant with original wiring and they ARE NOT wired neither way as in those two diagrams. If I cannot trust even the CSM (or on the other hand 'mymopar') then what can I rely on then? I really thought that the blue 2" thick CSM is the same as an FSM because it's issued from Chrysler...

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

I would think so too, so I don't know what else to tell you.

_________________
David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

I've hybridized a number of Mopar harnesses over the years for the Tidewater Mopar Club giveaway cars and I've often found that cars 30yrs old have cobbled wiring. You could be nearly anything there - pieces from other years, makes, or even home wiring. Very rarely have I found what seems a deviation from the factory manuals, but it does happen. Remember that color can fade over that time too.

Keep in mind that the schematic just shows what goes to what and doesn't reflect the physical layout; sometimes connectors are shown from one side and sometimes the other, so you must verify the orientation. For example, the dash pins go one way looking at the dash and the other way looking at the multipin connector. The FSM usually labels the views well.

I put a copy of the correct-for-that-one car schematics into every one of our giveaway cars. Long ago we did a 440ciV8 '68 Barracuda some years ago w/ a '67/'68 AC/nonAC 2sp/3sp hybrid harness; after it was sold a few times the schematics with it were lost and the current owner melted the harness by misconnecting things - very expensive.

Ballast resistors don't have a polarity, neither does an isolated field alternator's FLD connections, so those could get swapped around.

An Alternator Indicator is usually the dash ALT warning light.

After you've learned the basics of low voltage wiring, it generally pays to either 1) remove all the wiring and put it back to what the manual says or 2) map out what you've got very carefully. I find it better to bite the bullet do it properly all at once - then you can forget about it for a long, long time.

I wouldn't even think about beginning work until I have the full many page FSM diagram in front of me; it shows where every pin on every connector goes and the color code of each and every wire. In my 1973 manual it runs something like 20 pages. Even in nearly identical cars things got moved around from year to year. Your CSM is some generic simplified cartoon and you cannot expect it to be at all accurate.

I seem to remember that the factory wiring diagrams used to be available seperate from the manual fairly cheaply ($8?), but they may be hard to find now.

Another thing that just ocurred to me is that cars made in or for countries other than the US might have different wiring. I ran into that when I purchased a harness from a Canadian car for my 62 Valiant. Most of it was the same but there were a number of significant differences.

_________________
David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

'KBB_of_TMC' - www.detroitironis.com provides exactly the same CSM (chassis)and BSM (body) books in CD-format that I have, and they call them FSM's. On the wiring pages it says "Valiant Complete Body and Chassis Wiring Diagrams". Chapter 8 pages 188-208. 2 pages with alphabetical index of the charts zone locations and legend, 10 pages of diagrams, 9 pages of how all the connectors look like with colorcoding.
So Iv'e come to the conclusion that: I can't look blindly on the chart thinking that the 5-pin connector is plugged to the control unit but instead unplug it and have the connector loose and upside down, then it will be coherent with the diagram.

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

BTW, I checked the dual ballast resistor and the "upper part" showed 5.5 ohm, and the "lower part" showed 1.8 ohm. What should actually be connected to these different ohm-reading pins?

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

I have to admit I didn't consider that there might be non-US wiring differences - guess I never ran across it before. I apologize for not considering that. I've tried contacting Chrysler directly - they used to give good (but slow) answers 20 years ago - but in the last 15 years they won't even respond. The only US differences I've found was the special New York City horn and California emission related stuff.

Chapter 8 is quite right; it shows everything in the cars I've had. I know they swapped which manual had the wiring; I think they changed in 1975. I apologize for my mistake - the manual w/o the schematics sometimes has simplified diagrams. There are many simplified schematics floating around out there from a variety of sources. The factory schematics gradually got more detailed with each model year.

Somewhere Chrysler must have had schematics for the foriegn models, but I'm told they've thrown most old literature away. Perhaps you could call dealerships and see if they've old literature in the back (it does happen rarely), contact retirees who may have kept some of the manuals, or hunt Ebay for relatives of retirees selling off their collections. There are collectors of old manuals advertising in Hemmings and on the web, but you'll need something very special that they're unlikely to have. That isn't very satisfactory, but I don't know a better way to find such documents.

When wiring our club cars, I keep a loose-leaf folder with extensive notes and a current copy of the schematic and connector pinouts; as the wiring gets changed I update the schematic to record all the changes. You may have to do the same; start with a complete copy of chapt. 8, then go through and trace each and every circuit to verify that the diagram is correct, and modify the diagram as required to make it correct.

---

The orientation of any connector in the drawings can be checked against the shape and key of the connector - every Mopar connector I've ever seen that had to go a certain way was keyed to make it impossible to plug in wrong. Many have little letters or numbers molded into them for each pin if you look closely enough. The pins can almost always be removed from the molded housings with the correct tools. I got the little circular tube tools need to release the pins in the round dash connector at Radio Shack and a local electronic supplier. The straight pins used in the bulkhead and otherplaces can be released with a tiny screwdriver. I have a very handy tool from KD that also includes some round tubes and little straight arms, but I can't find it in their current catalog. It is a green aluminum hexagon with different size tubes and release fingers sticking out of each face.

Sometimes, especially at the bulkhead, corrosion has increased the resistance and heat and melted the pin in place. The best fix is a new housing (many, many models used the same housings) and to swap the pins from the old to new housing, replacing the bad pin with a new one.

---

The dual ballast used a ~5ohm side to feed the 5th pin on the old ignition modules and the ~1ohm side to feed the primary (+) post on the coil (let me note that many DMMs aren't very accurate measuring resistances that low). All "modern" replacement ignition modules either are missing or don't use the 5th pin (since ~1975?), so that side of the dual ballast doesn't do anything. The connectors are keyed to prevent swapping the sides, but the plastic pin could be snapped or cut off very easily. If you want to find out if you need the 5 ohm side, measure the voltage drop across the 5ohm side w/ the car running; if it is exactly zero you don't need it. If you swap the sides you'll get a much weaker spark.

The point-type ballast is around ~0.5 ohm cold, but is designed to get hot and increase it's resistance with current - it ought to reach ~2.5ohm @ 3A. The electronic-type doesn't heat up as much and so stays ~ 1 ohm. I've measured both. The resistance change specs for the point-type ballast are in the 1965 FSM, but were dropped by the 1971 FSM.

I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect the change was made for reliability; the point-type's exposted wire would run extremely hot and so be much more prone to failure.

---

Good luck!

My Duster is made in Hamtramck (code B) and my Valiant is made in Windsor (code R). So they both have regular US wiring.

_________________
Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

I'm pretty sure by '75 the FSM indicated the orientation of the view, but maybe the '73 didn't. Normally the shape makes it very clear. The ECM connector has molded in female pins and is one of the very few connectors in the car w/ non-removable pins. I've seen other colors used, but they always went the same places.

Looking at the ECU w/ the big end pentagon up, IGN (12 o'clock - often blue); the missing pin on many ECU's is on the same side as the pin that goes to coil (-) (10 o'clock - often black); the other side's pins (2 & 5 o'clock) goes to the pickup. I found 2 ECU photos at http://www.jimsautoparts.com/mopar_perf ... nition.htm
as I don't have an ECU in front of me.

The diagram at http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/elecignconv.pdf shows the back of the connector as you'd see it plugged in.

I've never had a problem with the orientations shown in my FSMs, but I've many years of reading schematics behind me. I can imagine that some diagrams show the view as installed (view from the rear) and others looking into the unplugged connector (from the front). Some manuals show both. When it's tricky, I make up the other view's diagram just to help me keep things straight.

The suggestion of dakight's was worth considering in general - if your cars' harnesses were built for export (a code X maybe?) it may have wiring differences, but I don't know what they might be, other than for the external lights. I can't imagine them changing the ECM or ballast wiring.

The factory used a short jumper on the dual ballasts to connect one end of each to +IGN. If your coil sees ~8V w/ IGN on, car not running you've got the right ballast; <2V you've got the dual the wrong way round.

My personal '71,'73,'74, & '75 Mopars -exactly- matched the FSM with absolutely no exceptions at all. The '65, '67, '68, '71, & '77 I worked on for the club all had various amounts of damage and modifications to the wiring by the time I got to them. My '71 was made in St.Louis, '73 & '74 in Windsor, the '75 I don't remember, so I think it unlikely that just being built in Canada could account for it.

I would always trust the FSM over any other reference w/ the possible exception of some TSB change.

Good luck!