With a little help from my friends!

I am just finishing up on my engine install and have changed from a one wire early style alternator to an early 70’s style with 2 field wires. I have a diagram that shows the re-wire to the flat style voltage regulator but there is no mention of the ballast resistor and how that gets wired into the new system along with the electronic ignition. Need a little help to fill in the voids please.

Thanks

The ballast is only used for the ignition amplifier.
It's just a convenient place to pick up power for the voltage regulator.
Ignition 1 is run position, Ignition 2 is start position.


https://mymopar.com/charging-system-overview-and-conversion/

Ballast has nothing to do with the charging system. Is just that both systems ( ignition and charging ) are related to the same initial power source coming from Ignition switch which is the RUN ( ign 1 ) circuit, identified by the blue wire.

this is the best way to understand what mods do you need


with this reg



This pigtail to conect the regulator



a female packard terminal and plug



And a section of 4-5 feet long of 16 gauge blue wire along with couple of splices will make the job

Nacho-RT74 said:

Ballast has nothing to do with the charging system. Is just that both systems ( ignition and charging ) are related to the same initial power source coming from Ignition switch which is the RUN ( ign 1 ) circuit, identified by the blue wire.

this is the best way to understand what mods do you need
View attachment 1142516

with this reg

View attachment 1142517

This pigtail to conect the regulator

View attachment 1142518

a female packard terminal and plug

View attachment 1142519

And a section of 4-5 feet long of 16 gauge blue wire along with couple of splices will make the job

Click to expand...

Ok, now please explain the power to the ballast resistor and the secondary side of the ballast resistor. As it sits right now the ignition 1 wire attaches to the old style voltage regulator but that wire continued inside the loom and had a secondary packard plug which in my case was attached to the secondary side of the ballast resistor. The previous owner hacked up the harness during the electronic ignition conversion so he added a splitter on the ballast resistor where the secondary packard plug on the blue wire and the wire for the coil were attached. During operation this modification gets warm which causes in some cases for the connection to be lost which shuts down the car. I want to repair what the previous owner did by making that secondary connection correct by repairing that connection with one new packard plug. I just want to make sure that the secondary packard plug on the ignition wire is the correct wire that goes on the secondary side of the resistor….make sense?

Forget the ballast. You only have to use the same blue wire the old regulator uses to splice there the reg pigtail and the wire up to the alt field and thats all. You you don't need to take care about the ballast for this. The ballast/coil wiring will remain exactly the same. The wire for the new alt system already exist.

The ballast gets two sides, one coming form ign switch with just blue wire(s) and the side with a brown and blue wire. That side is the one which runs to the coil on a diff blue wire which has nothing to do with charging. Brown comes from ign switch for the Ign2 stage ( cranking ) to feed the coil with full 12 volts bypassing the ballast.

If your wiring ballast gets one plug with two blue wires spliced into one plug is just because mostly sure factory ( or whoever ) used that point to splice power from ign1 circuit to the next device to feed also straight from Ign1 circuit. That wire comes from ign switch and is pre-ballast from the ign1 circuit.

You only needs the same blue wire the old regulator used no matter where it comes to feed new red and alt field.

Diagram posted by me is pretty much clear about what do you need for the mod. the one posted by Don Freiler shows the full view. Anything extra is not necesary except if it was a needed mod for any other upgrade still on car

On laters years, when electronic reg become standard the wire to the coil become brown from ballast, same color used coming from ign switch on ign2 to save from confusions using two blue wires ( coil and alt field ) running forward into the harness, but that's not important here

My previous question doesn’t involve the alternator but it too needs addressed. I want to make sure that the ignition is wired correctly since I have had issues with how the electronic conversion was done.

Thank you

I added some more info maybe while you read it so pay attention on my edited reply

If you have electronic IGNITION system, thats a diff stuff. Some more wires will be involved. So aren't we talking about just the electronic regulator system but also electronic ignition ?

I understand you want to clean up everything as much as posible, but would help what else you have on car to help on that

per what I understand is... this plug reachs the ballast getting two legs. One coming from bulkhead, and the other one to the regulator... right ? and what gets you confused is why the wire is getting the ballast.

if so, that's correct and is factory. The ballast plug is just being used for Ign1 power SPLICE to feed also the reg... some cars got this splice with a soldering point hidden down the harness tape, specially laters where more Ign1 sources where needed, but on earlier years where just two devices needed this source ( Ballast for coil and reg ), use the ballast plug to get that source was pretty much enough to feed everything the ign1 needed into the engine bay to feed as a splice for it. HOWEVER the regulator and ballast are not really related on anything but just sharing the ign switch source from the RUN ( ign1 ) circuit on that plug

NOW, if you have also Elec IGNITION added, then your car needs an extra splice for the ECU... OR use a common splice down the harness for everything.

You can peel off a section of the IGN1 circuit previous to the ballast and get the reg, alt field and ECU wire attached there OR... reach the ballast plug, like factory did, then from there up to the regulator like factory did, and THEN THERE splice ECU wire, FIELD WIRE and reg pigtail.

If using stock ECU harness color code ( MP ) the ECU wire to be attached there will be the light blue with yellow trace.

this is for example what Factory made by 1974, where also ANOTHER source for the reset interlock button into the engine bay was added. One common splice down the tape. Also made like this since 72 but without the reset button of course




we can go even deeper. On later years the Ign1 network feeded more stuff into the cab. Since 72 reached in fact the fuse box to get the cab surces fused protected saving also from a failure to the ign circuit by an external fail. On earliers, just one wire running to the BRAKE pilot light on cluster was enough.

Nacho-RT74 said:

I added some more info maybe while you read it so pay attention on my edited reply

If you have electronic IGNITION system, thats a diff stuff. Some more wires will be involved. So aren't we talking about just the electronic regulator system but also electronic ignition ?

I understand you want to clean up everything as much as posible, but would help what else you have on car to help on that

per what I understand is... this plug reachs the ballast getting two legs. One coming from bulkhead, and the other one to the regulator... right ? and what gets you confused is why the wire is getting the ballast.

if so, that's correct and is factory. The ballast plug is just being used for Ign1 power SPLICE to feed also the reg... some cars got this splice with a soldering point hidden down the harness tape, specially laters where more Ign1 sources where needed, but on earlier years where just two devices needed this source ( Ballast for coil and reg ), use the ballast plug to get that source was pretty much enough to feed everything the ign1 needed into the engine bay to feed as a splice for it. HOWEVER the regulator and ballast are not really related on anything but just sharing the ign switch source from the RUN ( ign1 ) circuit on that plug

View attachment 1142536

Click to expand...

At the end of the blue wire with the packard connector is another packard connector. And yes I am talking about electronic ignition. The first packard connector (the one you circled) was connected to the old style voltage regulator. The second packard connector on the blue wire was connected to the secondary side on the ballast resistor.

Ok, then what the previous owner made is splice the power for the ECU from the regulator plug and must be one of the legs I pointed out?, which is also correct. All those splices are made to share same source from ign switch.

I guess the plug to the ballast also got two wires?

What you can make now? Remove the old regulator plug and terminal, splice/sold on that end the new regulator pigtail AND the wire to alt field along with the existant ECU wire and tape/isolate that splice, then the rest of the harness and you are ready.

The deal here is, ballast, ECU, REG and alt field are all linked together to the same blue wire coming from ign switch. No matter where it gets first or before or if every device is spliced to a single splicing point spreading the power all around, but as far all these devices conected to the same source.

here's a diagram of a 4 pin ECU