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The Chargeless Charger

MoparGuy68

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How can a Charger really be a Charger, if it cannot Charge? In addition to always having to charge its battery with a Schumacher charger in the garage, with the lack of charging, it really can’t even charge forward all that well. My goal is to discover why this Charger has been chargeless for years, and get it charging in a respectable manner again, like it once did when the original owner drove this 1971 383 Magnum powered Mopar home in October of 1970.

At this point, from my research thus far, I predict that the reason for being Chargeless is due to electrical modifications by previous owners that were done incorrectly and/or very badly. Age of wiring and connectors could also be a contributing factor.

Previous owner said alternator and voltage regulator were replaced several times over the years, and each time charging would occur, but for a very short lived time. It would always soon return to the chargeless state it’s in now..

The last professional mechanic to troubleshoot the charging system on this car decided somehow, in his ultimate wisdom, that he should install a FORD voltage regulator on the car. I don't know what he expected a Fix Or Repair Daily voltage regulator was going to do for the car except butcher the factory wiring harness.

So this is the state of the current system. Ford regulator, 1972 and later style Chrysler alternator rated at 65 AMP current output. Electronic ignition, with factory style distributor and a single style ballast resistor. Fusible Link is present at starter relay. All gauges in instrument cluster function INCLUDING the dreaded AMMETER gauge.

Alternator was remanufactured less than four years ago, when its tested output was 66 amps at 2000 RPM, and 87 amps at 6000 RPM. NAPA battery purchased new exactly 3 years ago, rated at 1000 CCA at 32 F and 800 CCA at 0 F.

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What does the ticking time bomb ammeter tell us? It shows that when the engine is idling at approximately 800 RPMs, the battery is in a discharge state. The needle is slightly to the left of center. If we apply the brakes, the needle moves further to the left showing a greater draw of current from the battery. If we engage the turn signal, we see a similar reaction, needle moves further to the left, increased draw of current from the battery.

Working the throttle to increase the engine RPMs to around 1500+, then the needle moves to the centered position, showing no current draw from battery. Stopped at a traffic light, engine idling, needle is on discharge side. Light turns green hit the throttle, needle becomes centered on gauge.

No matter what the engine RPMs, the needle never moves to the right or charging side of gauge. This tells us that the battery is NEVER drawing any current from the alternator, hence the ever present Chargeless state. It also tells us that the alternator is outputting some current that the car’s electrical system is consuming, otherwise the gauge would always be heavy into the discharge side and the needle would never be centered.

I only know this much stuff about all this crap from reading about it on here and other places. haha. I'm documenting this car’s issue, because the previous owner failed to fix it, and more than one mechanic, who earns or earned money to fix cars, also failed to fix it.

Sunday morning, I'm going to start attempting to fix this myself, by removing the Fix Or Repair Daily voltage regulator and installing a Chrysler voltage regulator. And to also undo the wiring harness hacks that were made to accommodate the FORD regulator.

I’ve already replaced all spark plugs and plug wires. Made sure all connections on both ends of plug wires are solid. Replaced coil wire too.

More to come..
 
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1971- I see a electronic ign. So that's been modified. I'm not sure if the alt is putting out any current - in the day with only ignition needed, it can run off a fresh battery for a while.

You need a voltmeter to measure voltage at the battery. Do a full-field test for the alternator with a voltmeter at the battery. Disconnect the green wire at the alt field terminal. Jumper the field terminal to ground. The alt will go to full output. Do not maintain this for long. The 72 FSM has a detailed procedure with a test DC amp meter and voltmeter.
 
Aren’t Phord regulators designed to work like old mech Mopar regulators being for single field circuit? While you have a dual field alt?
 
Did some investigation work today. And as I suspected, I believe this problem is deeper than just a bad alternator or regulator..

I removed the ENTIRE engine wiring harness from the car. This way I can do continuity checks on every singe wire in the harness, inside the cool air conditioned house.

During the removal, I discovered that TWO of the eight bulkhead connections for the engine harness show obvious signs of overheating at the bulkhead disconnect. The plastic around the connectors for these two wires is blackened and melted. Where these problem wires go, I don't know yet, as I'll have to check the wiring schematics. One of them looks worse than the other and the metal connector looks charred.

The engine harness definitely is NOT original to the car. It appears to be a reproduction that was installed probably about 20+ years ago.

FORD voltage regulator has been removed and replaced with a Chrysler regulator that was included with the car parts. Whether the Chrysler regulator is good, I don't know. I do know it looks a hell of a lot better than the FORD regulator, which looked like it came out of a junk yard.

The other three harness connectors look good at the bulkhead, no signs of overheating or melting on any of them. Will post photos later, more to come.

I'll need this guy's help on this problem, I'm sure..
Mr-Master-Tech-1.jpg
 
The Ford alternator regulator (voltage regulator) has totally different connections. I = Indicator lamp, A+ = alternator output, S = stator, F = field connection. The unit has an internal field relay that is energized as soon as the ignition is on. When it closes, it turns OFF the Gen or Alt indicator lamp, which provides the initial field voltage to start. It has NO PLACE on a Mopar vehicle. The Mopar alternator uses different connections than a Ford alternator. Whoever ever installed it did you a terrific dis-service...its no wonder why your system does not function.
Drop me a PM if you would like me to help with your difficulties.......
BOB RENTON
 
During the removal, I discovered that TWO of the eight bulkhead connections for the engine harness show obvious signs of overheating at the bulkhead disconnect. The plastic around the connectors for these two wires is blackened and melted. Where these problem wires go, I don't know yet, as I'll have to check the wiring schematics. One of them looks worse than the other and the metal connector looks charred.

I'll bet ya a beer or bourbon that you have the fusible link and alternator connections that melted at the bulkhead. Buy a new engine harness from M&H or Evans Wiring. You absolutely should replace the female Packard connectors on the dash side at those two spots. the heat will have removed the temper from the connectors, makes them prone to more problems. Buy a good set of open bay crimpers that will handle Packard connectors.
 
Here are photos of the Bulkhead disconnect and the four harnesses that plug into it. You can clearly see the overheating and melting damage at two of the connectors where the engine harness connects at the bulkhead.

The most damaged connector is #18 R6-12BK Altermator (BATT). It looks like burnt toast. And burnt toast gets Bud Light!! Anyone remember that dumb commercial?

The other burnt connector is #23 J2-16DBL Ignition Run.

So it looks like I will need to replace the entire Bulkhead disconnect thing. The rest of the connections on it are dirty, but I don't see signs of burning. It appears it has been in the car a long time. I don't know if that thing is all one piece, or comes apart in modules?

#18 on the engine harness connector looks like it was cremated. #23 has got some charring too. The other three wire harness connector ends look ok to me..

The big question now is .... what caused the meltdowns? I haven't had a chance to look under the dash yet, where the dreaded ammeter gauge is located.. I'm pretty sure the FORD regulator alone didn't cause this, as according to the previous owner, the car had charging problems long before the idiot mechanic put that regulator on the car. That was why he took it to said mechanic, TO FIX THE CHARGING SYSTEM!!

What else can you call a mechanic that puts a FORD regulator on a MOPAR?? Maybe he was trying to sabotage the car, or just hated working on it (can't really blame him) and wanted it out of his shop in a bad way? He is the idiot that put the CobraJet regulator on it and I'm the idiot that bought the car, thinking I had a "driver" that needed a few things fixed on it..

This car has been neglected and abused (and I don't mean abused by driving it hard..). I would have probably been better off buying that junky 1971 Hemi Challenger, in Tucson, instead. Go for the most valuable junk pile to start with, instead of ******* around with these 383 Magnum junkers, so you are not way under water with the car once it's a fully functional automobile.. I guess my rant is over now..

The owner BEFORE the previous owner did multiple electrical modifications to this car. I'm going to assume most if not all of what he did was wrong and/or done badly. I'll be documenting what these modifications are to help sort out the electrical mess within this car. Chrysler "TECH" would just be shaking his head if he saw this Super Bee..

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Fried connections don't always mean there was a cause other than the connection itself, over time they get dirty and loose, loose means heat, heat = toast. You see this all of the time, a lot of mechanics are only mechanics and don't take the time to study the service manuals or even buy a meter yet think they can throw **** at it until it works. As mentioned, replace those connectors.
 
Those bulk-head Packard connectors in the charging circuit are the weakest link in that original charging system design. By far the most common charging system failure point and has been since these cars were new. If you want a permanent fix for an otherwise stock charging system, by-pass those two connectors altogether. No point in replacing them with the same Packard connectors, they will fail again.

If you’ve been following some of the recent threads about the infamous “ticking time bomb” ammeters, more info on the use of Packard connectors in the charging system is detailed in most all of those threads as well.
 
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Aaand as mentioned on EVERY SINGLE THREAD about this, you can see the heat damaged the BLACK WIRE ( ALTERNATOR ) but red is not THAT bad ( yet ).


THAAAAT IIIIIIT MEEEEEANS... ?

( come on guys, you can get this by yourself! With all the lessons in class )
 
Aaand as mentioned on EVERY SINGLE THREAD about this, you can see the heat damaged the BLACK WIRE ( ALTERNATOR ) but red is not THAT bad ( yet ).


THAAAAT IIIIIIT MEEEEEANS... ?

( come on guys, you can get this by yourself! With all the lessons in class )
The Alternator BATT connector looks so bad, electricity probably isn't flowing through it at all, and the circuit is open. So, I assume that is why the battery never gets charged..

By RED, are you referring to the Ignition RUN wire? That is the other damaged connector. If that was open, the car wouldn't run at all.. The AMMETER BATT connector, on the bulkhead side, looks like it has gotten a little warm in the past, if you look at the plastic around it. This wire has a Fusible Link on it, located in the engine compartment by the starter relay. The Fusible Link is intact.
 
The offset terminal on headlight harnes plug is the battery red wire which runs straight to ammeter. It doesn't use to get the SAME kind of damage than the alternator wire. This means where is usually the bigger load actually running, to feed the car loads and the batt loads when is being charged. Red just takes the load when engine is not running to feed the full system, or just a partial system load when alternator needs assistance, or battery is getting charged BUT just getting THAT charge load, not the system load
 
Got under the dash this weekend, and removed the bulkhead disconnect piece from the firewall. Inspection report follows..

The Alternator BATT black wire was fused together with the Ignition Run blue w/white stripe wire at one particular point, just a bit inside the car past the disconnect piece. I had to pull the two wires apart, they were stuck together quite solidly! At the point of fusion, the Ignition Run wire insulation was GONE! So the bare wire was fused to the Alternator BATT wire. The black BATT wire looks to be in sorry shape (I'm not yet sure if that is all from overheating and melting, or if there is some funky tape wrapping on it, or a combination of both). It looks terrible, bad, bad, bad..

I've posted some photos, with a close up of the black BATT wire showing the fusion point in the center of the image. At this point there may have even been an electrical short.. Several spots on the Ignition Run wire have chunks of insulation missing exposing bare wire. I think these two wire fusion and the fried bulkhead connectors for both of them, are the "smoking gun" of why this Charger has been Chargeless. After seeing this, I am surprised the engine ran at all.. Or that my dash didn't go up in flames.. What do you think would happen if these two wires really shorted across each other?

Now I need to decide how I'm going to fix this mess.. Next post will be the dreaded Ammeter report..

IMG_3827.jpg IMG_3830.jpg IMG_3829.jpg IMG_3831.jpg CloseUpFusedAreaAlternatorBATT.jpg
 
In contrast to the two wires above, the Ammeter gauge looks healthy to me.. I see no evidence of overheating at either of its terminals. No evidence of melted wire insulation near either terminal. Wires looks good near both terminals. I checked the connections and they are TIGHT. Tried to wiggle the the terminal studs and they feel SOLID. I'm not going to attempt to pull the gauge out, because it's too damn hot to disassemble the instrument cluster at this time.

I listened very closely, and didn't hear any "ticking" noise coming from the Ammeter.. I really don't think the Ammeter had anything to do with the wire damage near and at the bulkhead. The Ammeter gauge appears to be innocent of wrong doing here.. Not seeing evidence to impose a guilty verdict on the little Ammeter gauge.

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IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE, I got blue wire melted when the alternator Brush isolator got cracked and grounded. It melted the wire insulation up to the cluster ( it was standard cluster back in the days and the PCB gets a source from the run circuit ). It could happen something similar since we are talking about the charging issue.

The black wire... that runs up to the ammeter but goes to a main splice first down the harness tape. That could be some overload issue made along the years because a short will make the fuse link to blown on starter relay. Or simply the resistance at bulkhead terminals due the lack of contact ( for whatever reason) able to hold some amperes rate, then the heat began there and got transmitted to the rest of wire.

Everything is fixable easy and cheap AND as we have being mentioning all along this threads ( and years ) this is a proove the bulkhead, wiring and ammeter issues are NOT NECESARILY related to each other! Everything depends on the actual cause for it. A damaged/shorted ammeter sure will melt the wiring, BUT starting at ammeter, not at bulkhead! But also will blown the fuse link. The heat due the resistance won't blow the fuse link, just a short to ground.
 
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I listened very closely, and didn't hear any "ticking" noise coming from the Ammeter..

BTW, that was not a literal issue on the ammeter, it was just a "joke" from 72RoadrunnerGTX making his thread meaning ammeter is not a time bomb like many ppl try to expose it LOL. You won't heard any "ticking" coming from an ammeter ever
 
BTW, that was not a literal issue on the ammeter, it was just a "joke" from 72RoadrunnerGTX making his thread meaning ammeter is not a time bomb like many ppl try to expose it LOL. You won't heard any "ticking" coming from an ammeter ever
Nacho, pretty sure Moparguy68 was being facetious as well with that comment. Can’t take credit for the “ticking time bomb” label, it’s a direct quote from a post by our most vocal resident “anti-ammeter” member.

I get it. Don't actually use the charging system and everything is fine. Well no ****.

Bad advice to say to leave the ammeter in the car. It's a ticking time bomb. If you have a decent size battery and that thing drains, the charging system will be over worked, and the ammeter will burn up. Prove me wrong.
 
Oh ok! lol

Well about that statement with a decent size battery even being completelly discharged won't be able to suck more than its chemicals are able to suck still with a 100 amperes alt. In my own experience I have carried on my car since ever batteries with more than 900 amps as reserve load. Dunno what specs would be that on the therms you use in USA, but 900-1000 amps is a HUGE reserve load ( is double of what Chrysler of Venezuela used when new ) and I have been able to recharge my batt into the car and my amp just got full charge reading for maybe 3 or 4 minutes going down slowly untill get a charge reading between 25-20 amperes average for the next 20-30 minutes and then going down again. Sure is not correct but I don't have a home charger. I made it watching the process and also to check the charging system response on this case, just If i would have to make it again in an emergency on the road. I have to say everything went just fine.

Of course made it at iddle ( fast iddle initially since engine was cold ). Also for some minutes I turned on my headlights to test the charge load decay at ammeter on this stage. It helps to get the charge load reduced going through the ammeter.

It was an experimental process.

I didn't charged completely that night, just good and enough to the next day where the battery got completelly charged in the next hour or so riding normally around the city, with ammeter reading maybe 5-10 amps charge. Steady on that reading no matter the RPM speed untill get once again 0 reading on ammeter.

Once again, the amperes can't be pushed in from the source if the device doesn't claim for the load. Even a discharged battery can't get the amperes pushed in... acids won't go faster because that. The higher alternator capacity idea is just to guarantee a good load capacity at any speed including iddle, saving from the peaks and valleys on the load capacity.

As I have mentioned dozen of times: the glove box light won't light up more with a good sized battery than with a small battery. As far it gets the propper voltage rate it will suck the same load no matter the amperes capacity of the source. The filament will "burn" the same ammount of amperes. And with the same battery you light up the glove box than crank up the engine with the starter motor, and neither of both will burn. Is the same with the batt, the acids will suck the same because they take its own speed process to get the electrical reaction to the charge process. Just can take more or less time due the battery capacity.
 
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Oh ok! lol

Well about that statement with a decent size battery even being completelly discharged won't be able to suck more than its chemicals are able to suck still with a 100 amperes alt. In my own experience I have carried on my car since ever batteries with more than 900 amps as reserve load. Dunno what specs would be that on the therms you use in USA, but 900-1000 amps is a HUGE reserve load ( is double of what Chrysler of Venezuela used when new ) and I have been able to recharge my batt into the car and my amp just got full charge reading for maybe 3 or 4 minutes going down slowly untill get a charge reading between 25-20 amperes average for the next 20-30 minutes and then going down again. Sure is not correct but I don't have a home charger. I made it watching the process and also to check the charging system response on this case, just If i would have to make it again in an emergency on the road. I have to say everything went just fine.

Of course made it at iddle ( fast iddle initially since engine was cold ). Also for some minutes I turned on my headlights to test the charge load decay at ammeter on this stage. It helps to get the charge load reduced going through the ammeter.

It was an experimental process.

I didn't charged completely that night, just good and enough to the next day where the battery got completelly charged in the next hour or so riding normally around the city, with ammeter reading maybe 5-10 amps charge. Steady on that reading no matter the RPM speed untill get once again 0 reading on ammeter.

Once again, the amperes can't be pushed in from the source if the device doesn't claim for the load. Even a discharged battery can't get the amperes pushed in... acids won't go faster because that. The higher alternator capacity idea is just to guarantee a good load capacity at any speed including iddle, saving from the peaks and valleys on the load capacity.

As I have mentioned dozen of times: the glove box light won't light up more with a good sized battery than with a small battery. As far it gets the propper voltage rate it will suck the same load no matter the amperes capacity of the source. The filament will "burn" the same ammount of amperes. And with the same battery you light up the glove box than crank up the engine with the starter motor, and neither of both will burn. Is the same with the batt, the acids will suck the same because they take its own speed process to get the electrical reaction to the charge process. Just can take more or less time due the battery capacity.

Perhaps, you should go back and review the fundamental chemicial reactions of how a lead acid storage battery functions and how the chemicial reactions interact in the discharge - charge cycle. Sulfuric acid is the electrolyte that surrounds the positive and negative plates in each cell and facilitates the chemicial reaction. The acid does not "suck" anything. While you're at it, review Kirchoff's Laws and Ohm's law of current - voltage relationships and analysis and their interactions as applicable to the point you're attempting to make, for what you state, makes absolutely no sense. PM me if you want to LEARN more about this subject.
BOB RENTON
 
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