The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay bought gage

After all the go round on ammeter with an alternator and 12 volts, I bought an voltage gage to mount somewhere.

Do I run the 10 gage wire from the alternator directly to the gage ,then to the battery ?

No. The voltmeter can go anywhere that has a positive and a negative. Your ammeter was wired into the positive line only. So, remove the ammeter by splicing the two wires at the ammeter gauge together. Use heat shrink or something to completely cover the wire so it doesn't ground on something. Then use the closest positive that works after the ignition switch so you have switched power. Ground the negative lead to a good ground.

Depending on how picky you are, I would go a step further by taking that 10 gauge wire out from under the dash, but there are a few complications depending on how your truck is wired.

Deve,
I have nothing wired at this point, just a wire from alternator to battery and a wire from hei to ignition switch and then to starter-battery.

Dennis

If you put a wiring harness for the truck brand new into it, I am not sure how its wired as far as what is connected to the ammeter. If I wired it from scratch, NOTHING would be connected to it. Alternator-Ammeter-Battery. In your case, you want to remove the ammeter completely, so Alternator-Battery. But, later on, a wiring harness may tell you to connect something to the ammeter post! I believe if that ever happens, they are asking for unswitched power.

In any case, a Voltmeter reads from Ground to Battery positive and you can wire that up anywhere. If I were doing it, I would find Ignition ON positive (same place you wired your HEI), wire the positive end there and the negative to the case of the meter itself. That is with the understanding that the meter housing is grounded to the dash. In that case your meter will not read anything until you turn on the ignition.

OK, I will do that,ignition switch on to voltmeter

I am not planning to connect anything to ammeter in gauge cluster, after the long discussion of that

ok, wired voltmeter up and made sure battery was charged

key switch on,voltmeter reading just over 12V
step on pedal starter, nothing

put battery charger on and switched it to boost, stepped on starter pedal,turned over and started. Voltmeter ran up to 16V and stayed.

is starter in rough shape ?

Clean connections, Make sure you have a good ground. Charge battery, I like to do that overnight. Good system and a charged battery will have 14.5 Volts at the battery. A weak battery will need constant charge and will have trouble starting. If the start issue continues, get the battery tested, under a load. Most parts houses can do it for free. If the starter works, it is good. If it makes a lot of noise you might want to take a good look at it. Only a few bolts and wires to remove it so that is easy to do. A note, remove the cables from that battery first.

Late to this party but. If there are not there, then two wires need to go to the ignition switch. One goes to the start position of the switch. The other goes to the run position. They go to the same place. There may be a ballast resistor in the mix also.