Greetings, Am a new 64 Comet owner and am experiancing issues with blowing the fuse which provides lighting to the guages and spedo. In tracing wires back and forth, as well as connecting and disconnnecting plugs, I disconnected the main wire which flows through the loop on the Amp guage. Does anyone know if this is wire is directional? After I reinstalled it, my amp guage reads fully discharging. Any help on this is appreciated. I am still blowing the fuse controlling the dash lights as well. It holds fine without the motor running, but blows when I start the engine. Any thoughts here? Thanks. Jerry
The ammeter is definitly sensitive to polarity. The dash lights are not alone on the circuit. You need to find what else is on that circuit and isolate it. You may have a resistance short (a short to ground through a resistance of some kind. That is why you have to have the engine running before it blows the fuse. The light switch (and all the running lights) are on the same circuit.
i thought an amp gauge would just rear - if it was reversed? like if theres 5 amps but you reverse the leads it would read -5?
That is right, but if there is a draw and it is putting out at full charge then it would show full discharge. It can also be wired wrong to show either just the total usage of the car or reverse wired showing the total usage as a charge rate. They have to start out wired into the right places and then wired for the right polarity in order to read correctly.
gotchya im in my first semester of auto tech. im taking electrical this semester and its ALOT to keep up with
Paul, Thanks for your input. On this particular application, the main power wire passes through a loop on the back of the guage and there are no other wires attached to the guage. I must have routed the wire in reverse through the loop in error. Thanks again.
If the loop you are talking about is the main accesory supply line and the B+ side of the solenoid that is the loop it is supposed to be in. If you wired it backwards in that loop it should not read pegged unless it is over-charging or it is reading a direct short. The ammeter may be bad too, causing your problem.
