Ammeter bypass

[brianshaeffer]

Thanks, guys!

 

[Gerald Morris]

It is also important to remember that while most of the fine executives at Chrysler in the day likely loved these cars, they still needed to prioritize profits. From everything I have learned, the wiring in or beloved cars is probably slightly undersized for the current it needs to carry. Using smaller wires, saves costs and improves the bottom line.

Just my opinion…

They're definitely undersized, when considering that voltage drop in low voltage circuits occurs over short conductor lengths. The conductors to the rear of the vehicle are thus the most grossly undersize. ONE thing I do for this is to run a 10 AWG copper wire from the negative post of the battery to the rear bumper, contacting a number of points on the body en route. Another thing is to use LED bulbs, which draw much lower current. I except headlamps, which very stupidly have been designed for obscene, blinding luminescence instead of efficient low powered light equivalence.

I recently improved on the "MAD" bypass, which has an egregious flaw. Instead of bringing the enlarged conductor from the battery to the brazed connection in the dash wiring, I doubled two #12 AWG wires, cutting them to identical lengths to insure that they carry the same current, and terminated both at the fusebox on the battery side, then eliminated the stupid ammeter loop, which really was dangerously underwired. THINK! A SINGLE #12AWG WIRE CHARGES THE BATTERY FROM THE ALTERNATOR!!! As soon as alternators started producing more than 30 amps, this really was obscene cheapskatery from the beancounters.

 

[72RoadRunnerGTX]

Following up a bit on the C-body recall discussed here, I stumbled on link to a Chrysler part number 3940087 over on an E-body site recently. Haven’t seen one of these in a long time, appears to be one of the mentioned C-body recall wires. Pretty much what I remember from 50 years ago with a few exceptions, there IS a 16ga fusible link incorporated, an extra female Packard connection on the firewall side, the wire run from the alternator ring terminal to the fusible link is 10ga. Can’t seem to figure out why a fusible link would be placed in the location it is. The fuse box connection is in fact split into two female Packards to connect to both back and front sides of the fuse box battery buss, that I remember now. Strange too, there seems to be quite a few of these NOS wires still floating around for sale fairly cheap, paid about $15 for it. Claims to be NOS, pretty crusty but appears to have never been installed.
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A little show and tell, demonstration of the early seventies C-body recall bulkhead bypass wire.

 

[UGW]

They introduced them in 1960, but not across all platforms. The Chryslers still used a generator, although I have found some references to alternators being installed in some, possibly dealer installs. The 300 club has some discussion about it and the conclusion was that the 4 speed 300F had an alternator, but the automatics didn't. They also figured some, not all Imperials did too. Check the '60 FSM and they don't show an alternator.

I'm not sure about 1961 though.

For whatever it's worth, Chrysler's 1961 sales and advertising literature makes quite a big deal about how great the "new" alternators are, so it had to be right around that time.

 

[CBODY67]

I would think that 1961 was when the new alternators were in all Chrysler car lines. GM followed in 1962.

Which means that GM got ahold of the Chrysler alternators, figured out how to wring the last penny out of them and make them better, then flooded the market with them and took credit for them, I suspect.