I am wiring up My 56 Mercury right now and I do not know what is suppose to go on the back of the gauge for the generator. It has these 2 loops instead of connectors. If anyone can tell me what goes there would be a big help...and pics would be even better. Pictured below is the back of my gauge cluster. all wired up (except the Gen) and a close up pic of the gen gauge
interesting, I never saw one of those before. My guess is that you just run the main power wire from the battery thru the loops, leave the insulation on it, and it is an inductive ammeter.
Yes the wire just lies in the hoops. if your ammeter shows a discharge while running and a charge when shut off the wire is just running through the hoops the wrong way. A common problem on earlier pos ground. Your 56 is 12V neg ground so it should be fine.
So I take the main power wire that runs from the battery to the Gen and just run it thru the loops? the loops are about the same size as a standard battery cable.
That's it. The hoops sense the magnetic field put off by the wire telling it the direction of the flow and the amount of amps it is carrying.
It's called an Induction pick up...Ditto, what tommy said in the post above. If it reads backward, simply feed the wire thru the loops from the ooposite direction. The idea is to not overload the movement. 4TTRUK
Get a good look folks, thats the first and most likely last time you will ever see that statement on the HAMB. Yep. It looks just like the stock one in my '65 Comet.
The big f-series gauge cluster I got for my 60 f100 has the same thing. I had asked an older ford guy (friend of mine) a while back and he said the same as tommy.
Here is a quick sketch I made of a later model layout. The gauge goes between the battery and loads. The gauge only reads if the generator can't keep up, or the battery has been drained. If everything is working as it should, the gauge will just read 0.
Happened across this thread the other day and then came across the following video on youtube which pretty much states what's been said already. I thought I would just share the video. The topic in question comes about 1/3 into the video. Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vtk9eSyY0s&feature=autoplay&list=PL3ED386AC9261C3DC&playnext=2
I agree with your diagram but I don't agree with what you said. If the battery is low it will show it charging. The starter motor pulls a lot of amps. The ammeter will show a heavy charge at first until the battery is restored to capacity and the needle will come back toward the center but it will be on the right side of center replacing the power that is being used. The ammeter needs to be between the battery and the loads as your diagram shows. I always check the ammeter as I get out of my truck to see if I left something on. I have found more than one defective brake light switches by noticing that the ammeter was showing current flowing somewhere when it shouldn't be. Not to mention the times I forgot I left home in the dark and the lights are still on.
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