Bob Palmer wrote:
>................We need
>Steve to check for us and see if the wire gets hotter along its length as
>you go from the alternator to the ammeter..............
>
>Bob
>
>
>
Bob:
Now that I've disconnected the ammeter from the alternator output wire, I'm not
sure I want to connect things up again and start over.
I do know that the ammeter face (the glass) and bezel did get considerably
hotter to the touch than the other guages, but I never tested the temps. at the
guage itself wih my multi-meter. In hindsight, I wish I had, as it would be
interesting to see if the temp. at the guage itself, with the AC on and off,
varied by the same ratios as at the wiring junction under the hood.
As a related issue, I wonder what the long term effect would be, other than
pegging the needle all the way to the right, of running a 35 amp ammeter with a
70 amp. alternator? Mine is/was a 50 amp. ammeter, but aren't ammeters designed
to read, and handle, certain amp. ranges? Wouldn't too high an amperage running
through the ammeter than it was designed to handle cause resistance to the wire
trying to feed that power through it, heating it up? I don't know if this is
relevant or not, but even under a full charging situation (when I had to jump
start the car after leaving the headlamps on during the day), the ammeter
needle never moved more than 1/3 of an inch to the right.
The question remains as to what caused those Dodge ammeters, and the Ferrari
ammeters Margaret has seen, to melt down when used in cars that had modern
accessories like AC and electric fans added to cars that weren't designed with
them, and also had high output alternators added.
Steve
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