[tekuhn]

Originally Posted by Peter Serio

There's in inherent defect in the electrical system on those '63 Tempests and Lemans in regards to charging the battery.. With the stock alternator and the metal can Delco voltage regulator. The Amp gauge in the dash is a full flow amp gauge; one wire on the backside of that gauge is yellow and the other one is red.

One wire goes to the "+" terminal at the starter solenoid which is wired via a cable directly to the battery and the other wire is bolted to the output lug at the back of the alternator. The connectors to that gauge are simply push-on tabs which don't actually transmit full current. Also those tabs are way too tiny in regards to the current flow at that location. When charging a run down battery or driving at night those tabs get pretty hot and will actually melt the plastic connector and then those 2 wires will melt.

The push-on plug at that location I am sure was done for ease of assembly. Considering that all of the voltage that the entire car uses runs thru those 2 attachment points they should have been a pair of bolt on #10-24 lug connections instead of push-on. When driving at night all of the current that the headlamps are trying to pull is running thru those 2 push-on amp gauge connectors. On cars with 100,000 miles on them I have seen those brass tabs burned to the point where the amp gauge is ruined. There is a thin black cardboard insulator underneath both of those tabs; that cardboard deteriorates over time, and results in a direct short from the "+" terminal of the car's battery to ground. (That is what melts the red and yellow wires.) Those 2 tabs are wired to be 12 volts "live" constant; even if the car is just sitting, parked.

Thanks, I'll be sure to check mine out and possibly modify things a bit. I was surprised to see an ammeter actually. The gauges look very similar to my '65 GTO did (I assume '64's too). Might look into changing that over to a voltmeter. Might not be too difficult to retrofit a '64-'65 gauge in it.