First, let me say that the MSD 6AL Digital is NOT the problem. I put it in about 6 months ago and the car has been running, but not perfectly. It dawned on me a few days ago that I had powered the 6AL from the coil + wire through the original ballast, which apparently sends low voltage to the 6AL and keeps it from operating as designed.
I decided to clean up the installation, removing the old harness that connects to the electronic ignition control, removing the ballast and associated plugs, and removing the wiring related to the seat belt that had been mostly abandoned by a previous owner.
I eliminated the double plug in the starter circuit that went to the ballast by cutting the plug off and splicing the wire together in the harness between the bulkhead and engine harness. I first tried to wire the 6AL to this circuit, but as you all already knew the engine would only fire during cranking. I then spliced the brown (starter circuit) wire with the blue (ignition circuit) wires on the engine side of the engine harness using the double wire/single female (brown) plug that I took off of the starter circuit at the ballast. I had already put a male lug on the 6AL to accept power.
After the hookup, the car started up but backfired twice. I'm assuming that the 6AL now has the proper voltage so I'll have to reset the timing. It runs OK so that's not my problem for now.
My problem...THE AMMETER WILL ONLY INDICATE A DISCHARGE and THE SYSTEM IS NOT CHARGING THE BATTERY.
I'm using a wiring diagram from classiccarwiring.com that shows a green wire going directly from the alternator field to the lower right hole on the voltage regulator. Both of the wires connected to field on my alternator are going back into the harness and back towards the bulkhead. When I test for voltage with the ignition ON and engine not running I get about 11.5 volts at field plugs. Same voltage at the main black heavy wire bolted to the alternator. One field plug has voltage when it's not plugged into the alternator (the blue one) and one has no voltage until it's plugged into the alternator, then it has the same voltage as the other field and the main black wire.
I must have altered something when I was removing old wire, or more probably I was using a correct diagram and a previous owner jury-rigged something that I have now eliminated.
Please let me know the cause and the most direct fix for the non-charging issue. If I have to run a wire to bypass something I will, but I really want to be able to use my ammeter. That circuit has never given me any trouble before so I want to keep it.
Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.
