turns out its the red wire on that plug, gauge wires seems fine, upon taking the red wire out it looked alittle frayed going into the connector, so where does this wire run? is it a regulator problem?

thanks for all the input, i guess the car had the problem since i bought it, just haven't drove it that much till now.

 

That red wire should have the same 12v as the wire to the batt screw on the alt. The prob is internal to the alt.the regulator and the diode pack are inside. Alts are cheap. If you are so inclined a rebuild kit is even cheaper, but, you have to know what your doing then.

 

Pull the alternator and take it to your local Autozone. They can check them for free and sell you a rebuilt pretty cheap if it's bad. I got mine there for around $50.

 

so i went ahead and picked up the new alt. im still getting the draw from the red wire in the connector, also picked up a new connector, guess ill have to trace those wires and see where it all leads. or if anyone can think of why im getting a draw, could use any help, thanks

 

The red wire goes directly to the starter frrom the alternator. It's hooked on the small 8-32 post there. There is a small terminal block under the hood where it also splices with the large #10 red wire that bolts to the terminal on the alt. and also where the constant power to A/C is tapped off, if you have A/C.
Here's a schematic that will show how it routes on a 1978 Camaro:
http://www.nastyz28.com/camaro/wire/78w-eng.jpg

 

Did you try that in reverse to see what happens, leaving the main power wire connected, but only removing the 2 wire plug? The problem isn't with your red wires, because both of those are connected together further down the line. For all intents and purposes, you can consider those two red wires as one and the same.

 

yea i tried that, so i went ahead and started pulling the red wires away from each other where everything meets, a/c, starter, fusebox wire. i took off the starter wire and my draw went away.

 

You pulled the wire from the starter itself.....HMMMM. New alt, Hmmm....Gotta think this one. Put an ammeter between the batt and the cable...NO FANCY RADIO INLINE,and see what the draw is??

 

im still thinking Ignition switch.... the electric part on the steering colum Ive seen it before either out of adjustment or bad easy to check just unplug it it you still have the draw it good if not.... warrents further investigation

 

If you pulled the red wire off at the starter and it went away, then you might have a bad solenoid that's got a high resistance short inside. Put the red wire back on and pull the other wire. If it doesn't go away then it's the starter solenoid, if it does then it's possibly in the ignition as A2Turbo mentioned.