Hi,

Started my car yesterday and working out some bugs. The amp gauge in the car is pegged out to the positive side. Any ideas were to start looking for the problem? I have had the whole electrical system out and reinstalled it. Also the metal shop light hit the terminal on the alternator yesterday OOPS! and made a spark.

Joe

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1964 barracuda 198 slant

You may have zapped some diodes with that "oops", but focus your attention on the voltage regulator first. If it is faulty, or if it has lost its ground, the result will be as you describe. You need to fix this in a hurry (before you drive the car again) or you will burn things up.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

My Amp meter will peg after a front end alignment because of the brake peddle being depressed during the procedure, and after I have left the headlights on for a while (45 minutes during breakfast on a foggy morning at sunrise) when the engine is shut off. How fast we forget such tasks as turning off lights without those annoying warning buzzers, and smart battery drain “turner-offer’sâ€￾ that are installed in these 21’s century cars.

After the alignment & and a one mile drive home, I put the charger on correcting the problem, but the “lights left on eventâ€￾ took thirty miles of highway driving to bring the battery back up to full charge. Somehow I don’t think the heavy draw is detrimental to the amp gage as it is powered by a pick-up coil that reads electron flow by induction if all the connections to the gage are clean & fast. That being said, I still feel the pain of the conductors while watching that needle laid over hard to the right…

Short story, make sure your battery is at full charge, and fully functional with no bad cells. Than if the gage still pegs, follow SS Dan’s directions.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

took the single field alternator and the voltage regulator to autozone to be tested. The regulator came back bad and so did the alternator. I question the alternator being bad because the tester showed a diagram for hooking up a double field alternator and when I asked the parts guy he said that you hook them up the same way. But there is not two field terminals on the alternator so how could it be the same? He simple grounded the extra wire to the frame of the alternator. Does anyone know if there is a difference on how you test the single field and the double field alternators. Also my manual says that an overcharge condition is caused by the voltage regulator and an under charge can be caused by alternator or voltage regulator.
Is there a way to test the alternator at home?

Joe

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1964 barracuda 198 slant

That's more or less correct; the 2-field alternator gets one of its field terminals grounded during testing. But that doesn't necessarily mean the guy at Autozone knew what he was doing, nor does it necessarily mean his tester's good (and you should definitely not buy repair parts at Autozone -- they sell junk.)
You know the alternator's working to some degree; it's pushing the ammeter towards +. But even so, it could have internal faults that will toast a replacement regulator. There's no easy or reliable way to test the diodes at home, but those simple testers at Autozone don't test the diodes, either, that I'm aware of.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I picked up my new alternator and voltage regulator today. just for fun I had the guy hook the new one up to the tester to check it before I took it home and guess what it tested bad to. So I took it home and installed it any way and guess what it works just fine with the new voltage regulator. So the moral of this story is Autozone can not test a single field alternator with their bench computerized tester. It will come back as faulty. But the good part is my problem is fixed for around $30 bucks. gauges all work and I'm happy.

I wonder how many alternator they sell this way.

Joe

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1964 barracuda 198 slant