Hi Seigfried
For proper ammeter operation you want it to read the charge and discharge
current flowing to the battery. For practial reasons (the ammeter dosen't
read high enough ) the starter current is ignored.
All of the connections will be made to what you call the Family 1 of wires.
There should be 4 wires on that stud.
The heavy wire which comes directly from the battery will be the only
one not to move. The Negative Ammeter terminal is added to the
stud conection. All of the other wires are connected together and
connect to the Positive Ammeter Terminal.
Don't butcher your electrical system by stripping and twisting wires
together. These wires carry fairly high currents and good
connections are critical to reliable operation of the car.
Get crimp or preferably solder on lugs which fit the stud and use them
on the ammeter wires. Get a 3/8" (or is it 5/16" its been too many years)
bolt and use it to connect all the other wires. Use a good lock washer to
insuere tension is maintained. A small piece of fiberglass board will
allow you to mount this on the existing stud. It will be reliable, look
good and be totally reversable. If you chose to let the new connection
float around .. be sure to tape it well.. a short to ground will burn out
the ammeter and can easily start a fire..
10 gage should be fine #8 might be better. Normally it will carry zero
current but just after starting and if the alternator fails it needs
to carry up to 35 Amps. For normal insulation the electric code
only allows 30 A in #10 while 35A is allowed for high temp rated insulation.
#8 allows 35 amps for all common insulations.
BTW be sure to disconnect the battery before doing any work on the
soloniod, The first time I did this mod I didn't and the wrench
burned a 1/2" hole in the clutch master cylinder resevoir, as I undid
the first nut :-(.
Steve F
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Steve Finberg W1GSL w1gsl(at)mit.edu
PO Box 397082 MIT Br Cambridge MA 02139-7082 617 258 3754
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