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Can the factory ammeter gauge go bad and cause the battery to discharge? Will the ammeter gauge still operate if it goes bad? Thanks again.



I supose that's possible, not likely though. What can happen is that the ammeter will open up and not allow the battery to charge. However, when that happens the ammeter sits at zero all the time and turning lights on/off does not cause the needle to move. In this case it moves so I'd rulle out the ammeter, unless everything else checks out, a remote possibility, but not a zero possibility, yet.

Your dual field terminal alternator needs two things to output. switched 12V on the blue wire and a return on the green. Single field terminals are different. They cycle the 12V to teh alternator to turn it on and off. The dual field setup more smoothly controls the alternator output.

So check to see what is on the blue wire with the key on, should be battery voltage are very close to it. If not then you need to trace out where you lost it. If the blue wire checks out then move to the green wire.

Fire up the car and read the4 voltage there, the lower the battery voltage the closer to zero volts you should see on the green wire. The higher the battery voltage you have the higher the voltage on the green line. You shouldn't see zero volts though. You can turn accesories on and off, headlights are best, and observe how the voltage changes on the green line. If that checks out and you still have no output the alternator is bad. If there is no volateg variances ont eh green line then it's a wiring/regulator issue.

Oh yeah, make sure the regulator has a good ground too.

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