Wiring - Ammeter Question?

[color=#6600FF]Well, the PO had a Sun ammeter installed in the circuit along with a million other aftermarket goodies and repairs. I'm going through the entire dash wiring and removed this as I have no need for it and it was installed in a big-ass home-made opening to the right of the glove box.....really not very OEM.[/color]

[color=#CC0000]This is no doubt a ridiculous question but I'm leaving nothing to chance at this point. Can I just snip the two lead wires he had going to the meter, or did I read somewhere that they needed to have continuity?[/color] It's a 78B.

Thanks! :S

Dan

so what were the two wires going to mine only has one for the meter and one for the light that lights it up

disconnect the ammeter and see if you have power.......yes, then forget about it...no, then connect the wires together and forget about it...........

thats fine as long as both wires are not hot then you may have a fire

Hello Dan, as purely a recommendation here, I would strongly advise you to remove any wiring that has been connected to that ammeter. The reason being that the current draw for the entire car has to go through it. Trace the wires back to their origins and remove them completely, do not merely snip them and put a couple of wraps of vinyl tape on their ends. That way there will be no 'magic moments' somewhere down the line that could result in some serious damage to the vehicle. That is just my take on the situation and others may disagree but, you asked.

Jim B.

if the ammeter works......only one wire is hot

If it was wired correctly then the car will not run with it disconnected. The two wires would have to be spliced together in a proper manner should you decide to leave them be.

Nothing magic about an ammeter in a car, the Magnette came with one standard. I think that the A and B just didn't have one as a cost saving.

But, as Jim says, if you are going to lose the meter then go back to the source, find out where the PO whacked the main brown lead and do a proper splice there.

Make sure you disconnect the battery before doing this repair.

I concur with Jim and the last line in Wray's post. Clean out the entire mess.

Got it. Thanks to all. Glad I asked!!!!!!!!

I have never seen an ammeter work with ONE wire only.

Explain.

I think Lloyd was trying to say that once both wires are disconnected, only the input wire will have voltage coming through it.

Oh, I see. I thought you meant Lloyd's post way down below Stephen's. My apologies! :)

are you sure it's an ammeter and not a voltmeter?

correction on my statement you guys are talking about and forreal ammeter mine is a voltmeter big difference yours would feed through where mine only reads the volts being provided

i stand corrected it is a voltmeter not an ammeter

A voltmeter is in parallel with the battery and measures the voltage across it. If a voltmeter is removed, the wires going to it can be cut without any consequence other than you need to insulate the ends of the wires.

A ammeter is in series with the battery cable and measures the current going through the cable. If an ammeter is removed, the two wires going to it need to be connected back together.