More Electrical/Idle Problems

[icejawa]

Do you have an ammeter?  I sold you a tach setup with the 3 gauge cluster, so you need the 4 pin version; what you linked to is the 3 pin version.  Yes, that might explain your excessive voltage regulation, along with a lot of your other problems.

Yes I have the ammeter. Crap, the harness that already was in the car was also a 3 pin one. Problem found?? What do I do since I can't find a 4 pin one

 

[midlife]

Go to your catalog store and search for the non-tach version (or at least what they say it is for) and look for the connector for the voltage regulator: are only 3 pins used?

Corrected by Midlife

 

[icejawa]

Go to your catalog store and search for the non-tach version (or at least what they say it is for) and look for the connector for the voltage regulator: are all 4 pins used?

hmm, I think this is it. https://www.cjponyparts.com/alternator-wiring-harness-w-o-instrument-1971/p/WALT7B/

 

[midlife]

Scratch this; I was going from memory.

3 wire VR plugs are for ammeters;

4 wire VR plugs are for alternator indicator lights.

I'll correct the above.

 

[icejawa]

Scratch this; I was going from memory.  

3 wire VR plugs are for ammeters;

4 wire VR plugs are for alternator indicator lights.

I'll correct the above.

So did I get the right one? Maybe I'm confused but I would need the 4 pin for this set up?

 

[midlife]

No, you need the 3 pin version. Double-check that is in fact what you have; don't rely upon what you ordered from the catalog. Open the hood and take a quick peek. If you have the 4 pin version, that might explain an awful lot of what you're experiencing.

 

[icejawa]

No, you need the 3 pin version.  Double-check that is in fact what you have; don't rely upon what you ordered from the catalog.  Open the hood and take a quick peek.  If you have the 4 pin version, that might explain an awful lot of what you're experiencing.

I've got a 3 pin version with a 4th slot with no pin.

 

[icejawa]

Since my alternator harness is probably not the problem, would one of the other harnesses be the suspect? Since I replaced the engine feed harness, ignition coil, under dash harness, and tail light harness I would rule those out. Would I be wrong to once again take a guess and say I should pay Midlife to have my headlight harness redone? One point that I think may lean towards the headlight harness needing a rebuild would be when I put a headlight relay harness in. This bypasses the headlights surging the engine but not the flashers because the relay only serves the head lamps. The headlights are drawing power directly from the battery and not through the original headlight harness and now they work. Originally one headlamp was dim as hell and one was bright. Of course this problem would be aimed at the fact that I had halogen bulbs, but I got some incandescent bulbs from a local guy earlier this week and the problem still happens if I remove the relay harness and reconnect the stock one. I believe the flashers are part of the headlight harness also and the harness would theoretically have a problem somewhere.

I'm not sure myself if this would cause the engine to surge in a pattern with the flashers.

 

[midlife]

I sold you an engine bay harness already, did I not? Aug. 26, 2017....Mach, tach configuration.

I'd be glad to re-examine it at no charge if you like.

 

[icejawa]

I sold you an engine bay harness already, did I not?  Aug. 26, 2017....Mach, tach configuration.

I'd be glad to re-examine it at no charge if you like.

Yes, however I think you didn't have to rebuild the one you sent me. It doesn't look as good as the dash harness you did, which blows it out of the water. I think you got the headlight harness from another person for me if I recall correctly. It may be me just being quality obsessed but I'd love to pay you to redo it if you find it in bad condition.

 

[midlife]

Unless it was a reproduction harness, new out of the bag, I always refurbish a harness. And if you send me back your headlight harness and it is the one I did, there will be no charge for going through it again.

 

[icejawa]

Unless it was a reproduction harness, new out of the bag, I always refurbish a harness.  And if you send me back your headlight harness and it is the one I did, there will be no charge for going through it again.

I'll get it to you because I love your work, I probably will have it out later this week because work has me all week. Maybe when I take it out I'll find some surprises along the way

 

[Studdley]

Unless it was a reproduction harness, new out of the bag, I always refurbish a harness.  And if you send me back your headlight harness and it is the one I did, there will be no charge for going through it again.

I'll get it to you because I love your work, I probably will have it out later this week because work has me all week. Maybe when I take it out I'll find some surprises along the way

Did you check your grounds?

 

[icejawa]

Unless it was a reproduction harness, new out of the bag, I always refurbish a harness.  And if you send me back your headlight harness and it is the one I did, there will be no charge for going through it again.

I'll get it to you because I love your work, I probably will have it out later this week because work has me all week. Maybe when I take it out I'll find some surprises along the way

Did you check your grounds?

Yep in fact I cleaned them off really well and replaced the battery cables and engine block grounds as well

 

[midlife]

Send in your alternator harness as well.

 

[icejawa]

Send in your alternator harness as well.

I got that damn thing out finally, what a pain in the ass. Of course, there are problems I couldn't see with the headlight harness in. It looks like the moron mechanic who worked on my car a year ago ghetto rigged some stuff. For some reason a length of the harness has the tape cut off. There are 3 connectors next to each other that weren't connected: a white, green, and black cylinder shape connectors. Shortly behind them is a 4 pin square connector with a ghetto rigged jumper wire in 2 of the holes. I will post pictures soon my phone is just charging. After scratching my dash panel and chipping the black finish on the outside of the car under the door I'm straight up enraged by this.

 

[midlife]

Are those three plugs near the engine gauge feed harness plug? The white plug is for the PRNDL lamp, the green one is for the AC, and the black one is for the carb anti-backfire solenoid. None of those are particularly important. The ghetto rigged jumper wire may be the jumper needed for the neutral safety switch jumper for a manual transmission.

Is this the headlight harness I provided you? Did someone else work on it since it was sent? I'm confused...

 

[icejawa]

Are those three plugs near the engine gauge feed harness plug?  The white plug is for the PRNDL lamp, the green one is for the AC, and the black one is for the carb anti-backfire solenoid.  None of those are particularly important.  The ghetto rigged jumper wire may be the jumper needed for the neutral safety switch jumper for a manual transmission.

Is this the headlight harness I provided you?  Did someone else work on it since it was sent?  I'm confused...

Yep, near the engine gauge feed harness plug This is the one you sent but like I said the idiot mechanic I had used messed around with it. I'm not sure as to why he opened up the tape

 

[midlife]

I received the headlight harness from Icejawa and went through it today: there was nothing wrong. I did check for cross-feeds on any headlight-related lines and found nothing.

There was a single sportslamp bulb, of unknown number. The proper bulb is 96. In all of the discussions in this thread, the sportslamps never came up, but they are powered whenever the headlight switch is pulled out. I wonder...

I provided some additional trouble-shooting ideas for why the engine bogs down when the headlights come on. Basically, remove sportslamps, then headlamps, then side-marker lamps, then tail-lights one at a time to see which system is causing the problem.

 

[icejawa]

Got a new headlight switch and dimmer switch in; also took the incorrect sport lamp bulbs out. One of those must have been the culprit because the problems seemed to have went away. I do occasionally get a fluke where the hazards don't flash, they just stay lit, but I think that has something to do with the rough idle. I can't give the car gas because either the accelerator pump in the carb is trash again or maybe the choke plates are sticking on the intake manifold (I don't have a spacer with the edelbrock 1406 currently on there).