Quote:
Originally Posted by awfink55
Thank You ! Thank you! Patrick...
|
Well, that's the nicest thing anybody around here has said to me in a long time.
Here's how you can check your work after running the parallel line. Of course, if you happen to have an inductive ammeter, that takes all the guess work out (mine below cost about $100 or so, IIRC). Before you run your parallel line, with the car engine off, turn your head lights on and turn your fans on, and snap a pic of your ammeter. The needle should be a good bit over to the negative side. Run your parallel line, now repeat the test and snap another pic. Post both of the pics here and keep them for future reference. Your ammeter should still behave pretty much as it always did, just with less movement. If you find that your ammeter begins to move less than it did, or if your ammeter should stop working entirely, then you will need a meter to correctly diagnose the problem (because you want to know how much current is really going through the ammeter line, regardless of the fact that the dash ammeter says it's zero). It could be that the ammeter line is perfectly intact, there are no bad connections causing resistance, and everything is flowing normally... but the gauge just doesn't work anymore. On the other hand, if you clamped an inductive ammeter around the old existing ammeter line, headed up under the dash, and it reported that only 1% of the current was going through that dash ammeter and 99% of the current was now going through the parallel line, that tells you that you may have avoided having a very, very bad day (and, of course, you'll now need to fix whatever it is that's creating all the resistance in your dash ammeter circuit).
