Okay on my 70 RR I set up wiring for relays for my headlights per the madd wiring. I supplied the power to relays from the stud on the starter relay switch. All seem to work fine until I start motor and turn headlights on then the amp gauge shows slightly under 20+ and never returns to just off the positive side of zero. When I switch headlamps off it returns to just positive side of zero. I then moved supply wire to positive cable on starter with same results. What did I do wrong or is this showing how much juice the headlamps are pulling? Confused?

The head lites are not going through the amp meter no more, so that's not it.

Sounds like your battery is low. Try charging it overnight with a battery charger. Alternators are not made to charge a battery.

So I am not going to burn anything down if it shows that much charge?

It's not good for the alternator, make sure your battery is totally charged.

if it really is charging that much you might.
you have to figure out what is really happening first.

can you go through where you wired it, which posts on the relay, just incase.

and as said put the car on a charger overnight just incase and see if it still happens.

when you turn on the lights with the car off what does the gauge do?

I did this last week and my head lights are much brighter, when my alternator was putting out above idle.
Tonight I am installing a new alternator from powermaster after testing with another powermaster out of my other car. My old alternator never quit working, just not enough juice at near idle and not enough above idle. My car never went dead but it was not putting out like it should.

My car runs much better with 14.5+ volts now too with factory electronic ignition.

Its wired on the starter relay stud that goes to the battery.
With car off and headlamps on it shows a discharge.
Battery is on charger now will see what happens. just don't understand what is going on. I have a powermaster altenator. My headlamps are much brighter. Just afraid something is going to burn up.

I think you will be fine after the battery charge.

I bet yours was low like mine was after all that testing with the engine off. I plugged in a small charger on my battery when I was screwing with mine. It took me several days to figure it out I have to say. So my lights were on a lot until I figures out which elements were which in the headlights. I asked here and got it figured out.

Thanks for all the help I will let you know what happens

The ammeter shows only how much current is flowing into the battery "shows positive on the ammeter" (charging) or out of the battery "showing negative on the ammeter" (discharging) not what is going on in the system as a whole which is OK as the batt state of charge is what is required to start it & is what is most important. Normally the headlights & everything else except for the starter is powered in the circuit after the ammeter (between ammeter & alt) & now your feeding the headlights from the circuit between the batt & the ammeter which is making the ammeter see the extra current going thru it to the relays on the batt side & it thinks the batt is taking current & being charged & in error it reads positive. Feeding the relays from the batt side still routes the current in/out of the bulkhead like OE (the problem area) sort of because the power for the relays has to come from the alt to the bulkhead/thru the underdash system/out the bulkhead to the relays on the batt side since even when the batt is topped off the relays (& everything else) are still fed from the alt output. I'd suggest feeding the relays from the alt (the source) which will keep headlight relayed current completely out of the bulkhead which is way better that it was OE & will keep your ammeter honest. If not I would run a 6 ga lead from the alt to the batt or starter relay possibly with a special fuse which this lead will render the ammeter inaccurate & add a voltmeter (a good idea anyhow) which this lead will help the vulnerable bulkhead. As said #1 slow charge the batt overnight on a charger

Rapid Robert reported right. (There's your alliteration for today.) Putting the power for the relays on the starter relay stud (assuming '70 wiring is similar to '72, from FSM), will still cause power for headlight relay to be drawn through bulkhead connector. It avoids the headlight switch, so you've successfully eliminated THAT source of power weakness to headlights. However, power for the relays should come from the stud on the alternator, or at least a splice into the wire from the alternator (the large wire, not the field wires) before it goes into the bulkhead connector and into the dash harness splice. That's why the ammeter is reading high when headlights are on. The ammeter reads power toward the battery as a charge, it doesn't know that the load is the headlights. Best not to leave it this way - asking for trouble through ammeter, bulkhead connector, or elsewhere. If, or rather when, you do fix the source of power to headlight relay, make sure you put an inline fuse in the wire near where it begins to prevent future troubles if there's a short somewhere.

Hook the power leads for your relays directly to the output stud on your alternator.

Your current set up does nothing to relieve the bulkhead or ammeter of the headlight load. I'd bet the load is now HIGHER than with the stock wiring.

I hope you stepped up the wiring to at least 14 ga.

I was going to post that you should run a #10 wire last night but got sidetracked.

The bad thing is it makes your amp meter useless. I drove mine like that since installing the #10 wire for years now.

What I did pickup lately is a digital volt meter that plugs into the cig lighter to monitor my charging system. I wanted something simple and didn't want a separate volt meter under the dash somewhere. I keep mine in the console when not using it. That's how I noticed my old alternator was only doing about 13 volts with everything on at 2000rpms. The new alternator is charging up to 15 volts and I can feel it in the performance of the motor.

The volt meter came from Camping world, 15 bucks or something like that being a good sam member.
web page

" What I did pickup lately is a digital volt meter that plugs into the cig lighter to monitor my charging system. "


Got any more info, sounds interesting

Not really, it's just a cheap DVM. It's in my link above under "web page". It is a little slow on the readout like when the voltage changes but works.

One thing I did install last night was idle soleniod that kicks in when I have the AC on. I have had AC for like 7 years now and always played with my idle settings trying to get it right with AC and when it's off.

I also put my AC compressor clutch on a relay last week too. Now it kicks up the rpm with the AC on and keeps the voltage up which helps with idle quaility.So the idle soleniod is on the AC clutch relay also.

okay back to the topic First thanks for all the help again. Charge battery overnight didn't make any diffrence so switched feed wire to Alt output and everthing is good. Was just really confused. Did the same hook up to sons Nova and worked fine. Diffrent wiring concept.