Well guys, my father and I left this evening from Detroit headed to Arlington TX for the Hot Rod Power Tour in his 68 GTX (440/727). Everything is great, running along fine. We pull off to get gas, and the car is dead inside. I mean DEAD. No click with the starter, gauges don't light, none of the newer accessories (electric fans, fuel pump, gauges) run, nothing.

We started walking through everything with a test light, and there was no power to the ignition switch, so we made a jumper from the starter relay to the ignition switch through the firewall. The battery was too dead to start the car, and my jump box apparently is not enough to get it going. I couldn't specifically run down where the problem was with the feed to the switch. The only obvious issue is a blue w/tracer burnt up wire coming out of the ignition switch, but everything leading up to it is fine. The battery is dead too, so the car apparently hasn't been charging either.

We left the car at the gas station we stopped at 3 hours later, after the clerk reassured us it will be okay for the night. We checked into the hotel across the street, and I'm here in their business center printing wiring diagrams off. I realize now that our jumper is not feasible, since that wire feeds juice back out to the engine compartment. So the plan for the morning is to get the jumper functional per the wiring diagram and continue walking down the electrical system with the check light, then walk the battery down to Autozone to get it checked out.

So far, still nothing that really explains why the car was running awesome, then was immediately dead. Also nothing that explains why the blue wire is toasted...

Anyone have any other ideas on where to look for here? If we can get it fixed and find the root cause of the issue by noon we are going to continue to Arlington, if not we are heading home (either on the trailer or driving if we get that far). This is the third trip for us on HRPT, and the first breakdown we haven't been able to solve quickly...

HELP!

Check the connections on the back of the ammeter guage in the dash. This happened to me one night and had to get a ride home on a rollback. The next day I started my search and the nuts were loose on the studs.

Is the voltage regulator working?

Does it have good ground?Ie bolted to new a newly painted firewall.

Is it mechanical or electronic voltage regulator?

I don't have a volt meter with me, but am going to have to buy one tomorrow when the parts store opens. Not sure on mechanical versus electrical, how do I tell?

I have a spare one that came with the car years ago when we bought it, but I'm not sure if it is new, used, etc....

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'm trying to put together a plan for the morning.

If the car still has the factory setup with all the load going through the ammeter, that circuit is at the top of your list of possible culprits.

If the ammeter itself is to blame (failed open), the quick shade tree / on-the-road fix is to take one wire end off of its stud at the back of the ammeter and attach it to the other stud [essentially bolting the two wires together]. Remember that there is battery voltage there, so DISCONNECT THE BATTERY NEGATIVE CABLE before doing this, so you don't do any impromptu behind-the-dash arc welding.

Sounds like a charging issue, you were running on alternator power until you shut it off then nothing, because the battery is stone cold dead.
I would start at the simple things, is the alterternator charging when running? All the wires connected to it and the regulator?
Charge the battery, start it and begin knocking things off the list..
If you post a general location where the car is (tomorow), there may be a member that can help you..

When you get the meter, disconnect the battery (probably not necessary, but I'd do it) and check continuity from the positive cable to the big post on the alternator (that'll go through the fusable link, bulkhead, ammeter, and back through the bulkhead to the alternator).

Other page.

I burned that bad boy up before myself, no one seemed to be able to answer why it happened to me. I repaired it, and the car has been out of commission for the most part since then, but driven some. I didn't have an issue after that, and never really found out what caused it which really bothered me, but when it happened my ammeter would spike back and forth rapidly whenever I hit the gas under a load. No load and it was fine. Mine burnt up and seemed like it would have roasted the car if I hadn't turned the key off. It was IGN 1.

I know that when the fusible link burns, you end up with no power inside the car. The dash, ignition switch, dome light... everything goes dead.

First I'd charge the battery & then if no lights/accessories & wont crank then either the fusible link or bulkhead or ammeter, one of those 3 went open. Plus likely the reg (electromechanical?) fried & may have opened the blue wire with tracer that goes from the ign switch to the 'ign' side of the reg then it T's there & feeds the coil positive primary so if that is open it'd crank but no start. I would cut that blue wire with tracer at the ign switch as it may be dead shorted to ground somewhere along its' length since it was passing too much currrent that melted its' insulation. Jump 12V to the 'ign" side of a new reg to power the system & get you going. Holler how it goes

Check the plugs on the bulkhead connector. My roadrunner used to go dead like that and when I wiggled the lower one everything would come back on, I took it apart and cleaned it and made sure all ends were good and put dielectric Greece on it and its been fine.

Well here's the update. THe good part is that we got it running and are currently in Salem IL for the night, about 11 hours of driving left to get to Arlington TX. We jumped it this morning at the gas station, then drove to an AutoZone to rewire what we had found through the wiring diagrams.

Battery was junk (under warranty at AZ), voltage regulator did not have a good enough ground, bulkhead connector and two wires were melted pretty bad, fusible link was bad (not burnt in two though), one ammeter stud was super loose, etc... The wires that were burnt up had significant corrosion on them, indicating that this has probably been in process for a while.

All in all, we spent about 5 hours in the AZ parking lot bypassing bulkhead, rewiring different sections, bypassing ammeter, eliminating a few wire nuts I found from the previous owner, etc..

Replaced the fusible link with an in line 30A blade fuse, but after researching this evening apparently that is not the way to go. It popped sometime during our first drive, and the car was dead at the gas station again after getting there. We just put in a new fuse and continued on driving. Once it cooled down I pull the fuse on one of the Spal rad fans to lower the load in the system, and it seemed to help (fuse is okay).

Now I'm troubleshooting a light wiring issue. The dimmer switch is disconnected (has been since the PO) and two of the pins on the connector were jumpered so that the dash lights work. At one point today, the parking lights flickered on and off by themselves with the switch in the off position. We just turned on the lights to stop the flickering. We pulled the jumper to see if that would change things, and it just killed the dash lights. I can wiggle the ignition switch harness to aggravate the problem (and curiously get the dash lights to work without the jumper too). I'm now thinking per someone's either post (thanks!) that the blue w tracer IGN wire in the harness is shorted to the parking light wire somewhere in the harness (we repaired the visibly burnt sections, but obviously I can’t see inside the harness). This wire runs to the regulator, and could be causing some of the other charging problems.

The plan here is to do as suggested, and run another 12V wire (planning to repurpose the oil warning light feed wire that comes off the same ignition switch terminal as the burnt wire) to the regulator. Hopefully when I disconnect the current one it will fix the lights too.

Thank you guys for all of the suggestions and keep them coming. So weird, we drove this car on HRPT two years ago in the exact same configuration (only difference is water pump speed to get better cooling at low RPM) with the electric fuel pump and dual fans, with ZERO electrical problems.

I'll post up tomorrow with the results of the day.

-Dave

If it was my car I would relay feed those fans and fuel pump so as not to draw on that old stock wiring, I would also run a #6 wire wire from the alternator output stud to the battery with a 50-60 amp fuse to take the load off those old connections, strap the ammeter and run a voltmeter.

Great suggestions 4406bbl.

Sheldon

Don't run a blade fuse (30A isn't enough anyway), run a maxi-fuse in place of the link. There's a conversion on-line somewhere for the links if you can't find the spec of the original link.

Those fans draw alot of current, >50 Amps...
Far more than the entire Mopar OE electrical system...
If you still are going to run them, you should use relays directly wired to the battery for switching..

Just my $0.02...

Fans and fuel pump are relayed already. Sorry, I guess I should've noted that earlier. Fuse hasn't popped, and we are pressing on with no additional changes yet. Replacing the blue wire tonight I think. Thanks again guys.
-Dave