Man this cars electrical system just hates me to death i think , I was driving last night and hate the lights on (of course) when all of a sudden the lights starting dimming and dieing and then the car sputtered and died. Now i have no electric inside the car (no dome lights, gauges) and the key inst giving any juice. This would have to be my starter relay right? i replaced the ballast resistor already because it ran quickly when i jumped the ballast last night but it didn't help anything today. Thanks for any and all help guys

Start at the battery positive & work downstream. 12V at the large terminal on the starter relay then check it a bit further at the bulkhead(pull it apart & check for corrosion. If good go inside the car & check both terminals at the ammeter. Actually from your symptoms I think I'd take a peek at the ammeter 1st.

Not the starter relay. Trace from the battery as Robert suggested. Don't just start replacing parts until you do the diagonsis.

Ok but why would the ammeter be the cause for not getting electric into the car? Thanks

because all the power passes thru it.

o yea that might be important , iell go check that

Be sure to check the fusible link attached to the starter relay.

Check the fusable link AND the connection at the bulkhead. Then the ammeter.

Are there any signs that something is wrong with the ammeter? or am i just looking for loose/disconnected or damaged wires?

The ammeter can open up, but the bulkhead is the most likely culprit.

Alternator possibility.
Sounds to me like You were running on battery power til the electrical system overwelmed the battery charge and ran it dead by the alternator not putting out a charge to keep the battery charged. Check out your charging system and see if the alternator is putting out.
charge your battery and see what happens.

Actually the battery is still completely charged and turning over the engine just fine, the alternator is also brand new too so i don't know.

the only other thing i changed with the car electrically was added a temp gauge to the fuse panel but it was connected correctly.

Fuseable link, although it should have been and almost instant electrical loss.

Grab hold of the fusible link wire and move it around. If it feels crunchy, has a bulge or will stretch, it's toast. If it is bad, look for a heavy current draw downstream of the link.

It is very soft actually and has some spots were a bit of the wire is exposed, i tested the link wire and its getting 12volts but on the other side of the bulk head connector its like .2-.4 basically nothing. I also tried to jump the coil with a wire to the battery and smoke just came out of the ballast resistor.

amp gauge is fried most likely...everything in the car is run through it. Been there done that.

Look at the bulkhead connector. Loose and dirty connectors cause a lot of problems at the bulkhead connector.

Here is a 70 E-Body bulkhead connector that had a melt down.

Nothing is melted or burnt and i used a can of that canned air for dust on the connectors and blew out alot of dirt and stuff but it didnt fix anything.

The smoke from the ballast resistor is normal. It gets very hot and will burn off the coating it was made with for a little while. If your not getting power out of the bulkhead connection then either the fusible link is bad or you have a bad connection at the bulkhead. It's that simple.

So are you using a volt meter to test for voltage?

Where do you not have voltage at?

Have you pulled the bulkhead connector to take a look?

Yes, i have 12volts on the bolt to the starter relay but on the inside of the bulk connector i am getting nothing at all.

Jumper the fusible link and check your voltage again. The link can look good from the outside and be broken under the insulation.

I agree. The fusable link is the wire (original was blue?) from the starter relay to the 2nd bulkhead connector. But be careful, turn off the light switch, and be ready to cut the wire if it gets hot!

actually I would first pull off the second connector and check for voltage here at the fusable link.

Thanks for the picture, but i did pull them off and clean them , then i checked where the fusible link connects to the relay and it got a steady 12volts but the inside of bulk head where the fusible link connects to wasn't getting any reading so is this my problem?

Sounds to me like it isn't feeding through the bulk head. Bad connection.

Yea thats what i was assuming but i cant tell how its connected through the bulk head, is there a way i can repair this or ? what are my options to fix this connection?

Well you said you don't have voltage in the interior (Red wire) at the bulk head. I would check for voltage at the connector (opposite of end of the fusable link not at the starter relay) sounds like it fried.

Remove the connector (engine side) and check the voltage at this (of the fusable link) end.

Okay, so this fuse i have to replace, is this in the car or somewhere on the wire itself?

It is the wire.

It is a special wire that acts like a fuse if there is too much draw on it.


If you buy a generic fusable link from the parts store make sure to also buy one of these pakard 56 terminals.





so you can terminate it correctly.

If this is bad don't just splice in the replacement part. Take the wire out of the harness and replace this assy.



I dunno if the replacement part is available anymore at the local parts store. You may have to make your new ends.

This picture is from a ebay ad that is a direct replacement part.

Better yet do the MADD electrical update. Dunno where the link to that one is but I'm sure someone here has it.

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml

And

http://www.allpar.com/history/mopar/electrical.html

And here is the electrical update for the headlights. Maybe it won't put such a strain on your electrical system after this mod.

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/brighter-headlights.shtml

Plus you will have brighter lights.

Thanks alot for all the great information on this, i have never read it but it was really interesting and i never even really thought about it. Just so i understand correctly though, if the ammeter breaks then i wont receive any electric to the car thus making it not possible to start by key? and would my initial problem where the lights cut off and the car died while i was driving coincide with a broken ammeter? thanks again for all the great stuff

The fact that you don't have your voltage on the inside of the bulkhead indicates that either your fusable link is bad or the bulkhead is bad. The female connectors open up and need to be closed up some after all these years.