Hi looking for assistance with an electrical issue on my 1967 Camaro. I have completely restored this car 4-5 years ago nd since then the car had been running great, then after charging the battery over winter break, started car and took it out, within 15 mins or so the battery was low enough not to restart. Lucky for me I was at Oreilly when it happened. I took my battery in and they tested it to be bad. I replaced using their top of the line battery, they then tested my charging circuit after I installed the battery and they said the regulator failed, alternator was good. I went home and installed the regulator and started the car. There was buzzing from the Borg Warner regulator so I drove it back to Oreilly and they tested regulator to fail again. Ordered a new one and same thing. I removed the cover on the reg. and found the contact on the single pole was not in the right place from the factory. Bent connector and started and humming went away, now I have no charging effect going on. I checked alternator by jumping F and 3 and battery on multimeter increased to 15.2 before shutting off the car. I also tested F to ground to be 12 ohms which should be good. I was getting 37 ohms and 20 ohms through the reg coils which sounds logical. After reading some of the posts I tryed running a ground wire straight from the neg. post to the alternator and reg. ground. I cleaned all connections on the reg terminal by removing all four and sanding. I have a console car with factory gauges. Someone said to see if the resistor was burned on the voltage gauge. I removed the gauges and did not see a resistor but I have driven this car over 11000 miles as it was before the reg and battery change. I purchased a VR715 Wells Regulator today and still no luck. I feel like something is not exciting the alternator and I don't know why. I thought about taking the alternator off and taking to Oreilly to put on there inside machine next. Any suggestions would be helpful this s my first time posting here, sorry for the long story.

 

Does the voltage light or ALT light come on when you turn the key on? This little light if it burns out will cause your circuit not to charge in some cases the car wont start. Check and replace if it seems to not turn on... It Should light with key on and do not start the car then go out after the car starts...

 

I haven't looked at that, but I will pull apart the speedo and look at the circuit. Thank you for the post!

 

Your alt is good as you did the 'Full Field test' by putting battery voltage on alt F terminal and alt responded. However, it should have been around 30 volts.
On VR, there is a strap about one mounting bolt for ground from VR chassis to rad support for ground. But you, pretty much eliminated this path by wiring directly to battery post.

You might wire brush the horn relay buss bar and its terminals and the battery junction block and its terminals as this route is for battery recharge, red #10 GA wire.

Ammeter is basically a millivoltmeter and is connected between horn relay buss bar, black wire (?) and battery junction block black/white (?) or opposite color stated.

Ensure continuity from VR to alt and battery.
Measure alt BATT post to ground and battery posts, should be less then 0.4 volt difference.
If more, then resistance/corrosion/broken strands in red wire
Ensure good ground on battery negative cable, both ends.
Yes, GEN light comes on with ign key on, eng off, then off with eng running.

A quick test of alt working normally is a screwdriver flat across rear bearing and one should feel a magnetic pull on screwdriver - more force, more resistance on screwdriver pulling. Alt case should be warm to the touch.

 

Fyi, Delco Remy makes a solid state external voltage regulator. Not that that's your problem, just the solid state can be more reliable (less problematic) than breaker points.

 

Thank you all for your responses, I will be working on it after work and checking the things you pointed out. I only let the car run up to 15.5 volts before turning it off, the voltage was still rising when performing the alternator test. I didn't want to burn up any wires or electronics. Is the delco rely the same as the Wells VR715? That is what I added over the weekend.

 

I don't believe they're "the same", as in being twins, but the Wells (aka Autozone Duralast) is electronic. I haven't heard anything bad about it.

 

After doing some further investigating, I took apart the dash and found that someone at some point in time replaced the factory fuel gauge to a factory tach. They cut the brown wire on the wiring harnis to the circuit board and it appears they jumpered it to the ignition possibly. Not sure just yet. They also cut a green wire on the ignition switch in which would have landed to a temp switch through the same wiring harnis. I did find it looked like the brown wire that they jumped has continuity from there connecting into the ignition to 4 on the regulator harnis. I did check all bulbs and found some of the plastic holders were not getting continuity even though the bulbs were good. Replaced those with good ones. I did find my turn signal on the circuit board has a break so I will order a new circuit board. I replaced the terminal end for the #10 wire on the horn relay, it looked pretty corroded. I have .02 ohms between positive batt post to that red wire on the horn relay. After that I stopped for the evening, just keeping an update if any one was interested.

 

So just for point of reference I have console with gauges and factory speedo with now a factory tach. To my knowledge the clock in the console has never worked and when I inspected the battery gauge there was not a resistor between positive and negative. But it wouldn't have been there since resto was completed and the car worked up until this point. I feel like I'm going in circles. Probably something minute that I'm overlooking. Thanks for all the posts thus far!

 

Btw there is not a Gen light in the gauges. Just the Fuel Light and the Brake Light is in the Speedo. The Tach just has the turn signal