Ammeter wires melting (Ammeter bypassed)

[jessejames]

Hey guys, I'm posting on behalf of Jesse as I was doing some trouble shooting on his car (A no power situation). Fusible link was good, so I started checking continuity from there to the ignition switch, and there was a lot of resistance. So I figured it had to be where the ammeter wires were joined (As he no longer has one in the car).

 

So anyways, upon looking back there, the two wires are completely burnt up and green. I held them together to give the car some power and they heated up almost immediately.

 

Now he does have fuel injection in this car, and from what I can see, it's all running through that one main wire coming off the starter (I could be wrong, but I don't think so). I have done the same thing with my classic Mustang, but I used separate 10gauge wires running to the relays for the incoming high power (to the relays). It looks to me like whomever did the wiring for the fuel injection used relays, but didn't give them their own power from the battery.

 

HOWEVER, I'm not sure if that is the problem. If the whole system was drawing too much power (And making the ammeter wires, which all power has to flow through) heat up, you'd think the fusible link would burn up, or at least start getting warm, but it doesn't seem to me like any of the other wires are getting hot.

 

Anyone experience this problem?

[ktm]

Yep. When I replaced my ammeter with a voltmeter, I had to connect these two wires together in order to charge the battery from the alternator. The ammeter was the point of connection between the battery and the alternator. My wires got very hot and melted the butt splice as well as part of the insulation. You should be able to remove this connection all together and cap the ends as long as you find another means of connecting the battery to the alternator.

[Konish]

Dang...I bypassed my ammeter as well recently and now wondering if I introduced a new wiring issue. I looked at the wiring diagram to see if I could by pass the connection earlier in the harness but they way both of those wires are routed into the fuse box confounded me a bit. I would love to find a safer, alternate means to wire this up...any electricians out there?

R/

Dustin