Thanks to a member here

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Joined
Aug 8, 2014
Messages
374
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6
Location
New York
My Car
1973 Q code Mac 1
I have to thank Dan who is on here as 72HO. He was kind enough to look my car over and went even further. He prevented a likely "flatbed" moment by diagnosing a charging issue and he even had the right part "in stock" for the repair.

Thanks again Dan. Your help and advice is much appreciated.

 
you're welcome :).

it can be a game every time you come over we break 5 things and fix 2 things.

:D

 
to recap.

Jeff came over, first time we met, so we were thankful it wasn't a catfish situation.

he has some concerns about his car and had just had issues with what we thought was his regulator. He had some lights flickering.

we messed around with his car and mine for a while and i was showing jeff how to do some simple diagnostics when i took out my alternator battery tester.

I put it on his car and the alternator was not charging, and the battery was reading low but it had about 12.3-4 volts.

figuring it could be the alternator because he just swapped the regulator, i gave him a alternator i had that was sitting on my shelf for a couple years.

originally i figured Jeff would want to install it but i was worried his car might not make it home, so i figured i'd swap it as its not too hard or so we thought.

So i took out his old alternator and the wire harness didn't look to good, i attempted to repair it a little but it was very heavy corroded, we decided he would just buy a new reproduction harness and replace it.

So we swapped the new alternator back in and made the final wire connection when there was a BIG spark from the battery. that isn't good something was causing a short.

we went over the wiring a couple of times and i could not find the fault.

i had an idea it might be the 1973 Seat back locks actuator so we disconnected the wire for the seats.

no more spark, we started the car but the alternator was again not charging.

it was getting late so we hit the local autozone we took jeff's 73 alternator that we took out to get tested, it failed. Autozone had a alternator in stock but the first one they couldn't find and the second one was for a non-A/C car different pulley, they had a regulator so we gave that a shot, decided to try my alternator again and left with just the voltage regulator.

got home hooked it up and Viola his new alternator and the new regulator worked his battery was getting charge again.

So there was a big wiring short before jeff even had the car in his possession which might of blown the alternator and the regulator.

i did some research on the seat back locks wire and something either changed on the car or it was put in the wrong place by the previous owner.

so that is the next project as we taped up the wire for safety and we also found out we blew out his ignition buzzer in all this.

i got him a new buzzer so that is the next project restoring lost function.

old cars gotta love em.

the seat locks wire was originally placed on the isolator next to the battery, this caused a massive short circuit.

I had moved it to the pos side of the starter solenoid, where it worked but i got nervous and disconnected it and taped it up because i wanted him to be able to get home without incident.

interesting to note we have a thread about it here.

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-fix-for-dim-71-to-73-mustang-dash-instrument-panel-lights

now in the thread old pony has his on the solenoid

and jeff8877 has his on the isolator

Don from OMS said on page 2 that:

The breaker mounted to the junction block was on tach dash cars

The one mounted to the solenoid was on non-tach cars

the problem is JEFF's car (twins) is a factory tach car but putting it on the junction block(isolator) cased a massive short circuit, while putting it on the starter solenoid did not.

 
And all that happened in one afternoon!:thankyouyellow:

By the way, from the passenger seat Dan's car rides better than new. No rattles, firm suspension and burns rubber as well!

Now I have my homework to do. New wiring harness to install and a few other small projects before we hit the larger stuff. Good to know Dan is around. I really cannot thank him enough. [/b]

 
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