I was doing an base digital to buttstuffog cluster swap and i couldnt find the right wires to go to the pinout for the amp meter so i plugged in a couple that looked like it and it burnt the connections so i unplugged them and and now my car wont charge itself any help would be very much appreciated thank you
AFAIK there is no wiring in the digital harness to support the buttstuffog ammeter(that never works anyway)... Charging problem is likely a blown fuse link from the alternator...
well i guess i didnt fix my problem wheres that fuse link at?
Fuseable links are all just under the starter solenoid on the fender. Sometimes the wires look fina and ya gotta tug on them a bit to find the right one. Not sure the guage of the viseable link, but your looking for a yellow 10 guage wire that feeds it if you still have the stock wiring.
Also, the green wire to the alt harness is what powers the battery light.
Is your Cougar an XR?
What car is the buttstuffog cluster from?
What is the color code of the wires you plugged that burned the connector?
Do you have electrical troubleshooting tools? Meter or test light?
Its an ls and the cluster is from an xr7 cougar v8 ill take a look at the wires behind the cluster when i get off but it was a dual green wire idk remember the stripe color and a black/red wire ive got a multimeter
So i need to replace the 14 ga fuseable link what about the other wire thats paired with it
Are you saying you have found a blown fuse link?
nope i found that yellow wire and i ordered a fuse link but i i cut it off and connected it without the fuse link to see if it would work and it didnt so im guessing its not a blown fuse link any other ideas guys?
If it's a 86-88 302, the alt wiring is really pretty simple.
The green wire is just a powered 12v wire that comes off the alt only when it's charging. If this wire is broken, it will light up the battery light. I'm not sure if it actually has anything to do with charging, but I'm honestly not sure if it has to be hooked up for it to charge or if it is just for the voltage guage.
You need to double check that you are getting power out of the alternator or not.
For the alternator to work it needs:
1. Battery voltage on the B+ terminals.
2. Battery voltage on the regulator A terminal.
3. Battery voltage on the regulator I terminal with the key in the RUN position.
Okay, so I is the light green/red stripe. I forgot it had a stripe because I replaced it with green wire when I did my 3g swap. The black/orange stripe is the main feed where it splits from two 10 guage wires to a single, and I guess that's where another fuseable link is, I remembered incorrectly, my apologies. If that fuseable link is blown, it would easily cause your no charge issue.
Does the factory amp guage on the buttstuffog cluster use a shunt or is it more of a volt guage? I've never seen one up close before. The wiring pinouts on coolcats are pretty different between the two.
http://www.coolcats.net/general/8588buttstuffog_v8.html
The base cluster has the light green/yellow for the amp light and then a "alt from ignition" on yellow/grey.
The buttstuffog has two wires just labled amp with colors red/yellow and yellow/light green. I'll see if I can dig up page 149 of the evmt and see if I can spot differences.
alright so the gray yellow/wire that leads to the cluster is not connected im guess that has to be connected to a wire thats got power with the key on?
it has like a light with a battery on it so i guess shunt
There needs to be a resistor... Let me quote another thread I found.
Hope that helps.
awesome so all i need to do is get a 500 ohm resister and and wire the grey/yellow wire to a key on power source?
Wire it to the ltgreen/red and the grey/yellow unless I'm reading it wrong. You need a load to get the alt going. The base dash uses a 194 bulb in the battery light as a load to get the alt to kick on and then has a backup 500 ohm resistor in case the bulb burns out.
You could likely just try clipping a bulb to those wires with some alligator clips temporarily to see if the cars starts charging.
Not sure if the amp guage will work this way, but it should get the alt charging again. I'm still looking through diagrams trying to figure out the cluster wiring.
The gray/yellow wire is wired the ignition switch and should be hot with the ignition in RUN.
Since your buttstuffog cluster doesn't have a warning light, just hook the gray/yellow wire to the light green/red wire.
You don't need a resister.
The diagram I posted is 88. It is different than 87. It has two more fuse links and is hooked up different.
well i did that and now none of my dash lights work is there a fuse somewhere that might have went out?
not even the light on my radio works the car is charging now though
alright thanks guys i figured it out the light grey/ blue wire needs to be wired to the the grey/yellow one