Okay here is the story..
1966 dodge outfitted with post 71 electronic ignition and charging system. I have replaced the battery more times than I can count. So I had a crappy generic chinese made regulator installed and I was reading 17.5 volts at the battery. So I ordered a new one from Mancini Racing, a genuine Mopar part electronic regulator. Installed that one and fired up the car and was getting: 17.5 volts at the terminals under idle. So I checked the grounds. I removed paint and even ran a wire from the alternator body to the body of the regulator to the negative terminal. Checked resistance to ensure the connections were good. The engine is grounded well to the frame, so the grounding is good. Fired up the car, let it idle and got 17.5 volts at the terminals at IDLE. What the freaking HELL!!!! I am at a loss. This is driving me in-freaking-sane. The car is being driven daily by my wife while her car is in the shop, so I need for this car to be reliable for her for at least another week.

Please help me. I am truly lost. Also, checked the volts on a double A battery and it read 1.58 volts (ona 1.5 volt battery). My battery, while the car was off, was reading a steady 13.7 volts.

This is mind boggling.
Please help, pretty please with some freaking sugar on top.
Caesar

Pull both field wires off the alternator. One at a time check the resistance to ground on each field terminal of the alternator. Both should be in the mega-ohm range (near infinite resistance). If not the field circuit is shorted to ground. Since one field wire from the regulator is at battery potential if the other side of the field is grounded then you are putting full voltage to the field and getting maximum alternator output.

The wire from the regulator to the alternator that does not have battery voltage should only connect the one terminal of the regulator to one terminal of the alternator. If you have both field wires disconnected at the alternator and the plug disconnected at the regulator this wire should also have nearly infinite resistance to ground. If this wire is grounded you will full field the alternator and hurt batteries and other electrics.

Learn how the system is supposed to operate. It's a simple system and once you understand how the voltage regulator controls the field current it's very easy to diagnose.

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Joshua

I don't like the Mopar voltage regulators; they tend not to be of very good quality. NAPA Echlin VR-38 or STandard-BlueStreak VR-125. But let's assume the Mopar regulator is at least good enough for the time being. I think you've got high resistance in the wiring to the voltage regulator. It "sees" lower-than-actual line voltage on account of the high resistance, so it's ordering more-than-necessary poop from the alternator. Has it been doing this ever since you retrofitted the later alternator, or is it a more recent development? I think the fix is going to wind up being pretty easy, maybe involving some new wires between ignition-on 12v and the regulator and the alternator. You will likely also want to make sure the alternator, battery, and regulator base are all on the same ground plane by running a ground loop to those three locations. If you've still got the original '66 type regulator kicking around, you can easily do the whole initial wiring diagnostic in one go: toss it in (make sure it's base-grounded) and run two test wires, one to battery positive and one to either of the alternator's field terminals, then ground the other field terminal, start up the engine and see how the charging system behaves...

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