My 68 had Sunpro gauges (amp,temp&oil) installed when I got it. However, about a week ago I was driving and everytime I hit a bump sparks would fly from the back of the amp gauge. I checked the gauge out and the metal housing was the part that was actually sparking. I saw that it was loose so I disconnected the battery and took the pod off. Well there was some type of melted plastic around the screws keeping me from tightening it , so I scraped it off and tightened everything. When i went back to connect the battery there were some mild blue sparks coming from the (-) side. I thought O.K., a bad groung somewhere. Well, the battery was drained and I went to jump it and all hell broke loose. As soon as I connected the jumpers, sparks were flying everywhere.
So what am I rambling about you say?....The wires that connect to my amp gauge are the two thick red wires that it seems run to my Volt Reg. Is this in any way correct? And if so, was the plastic that was on the screws grounding the wires? I'm at a total loss as to why my car will not stayed charged, which was the original problem I thought was solved. HELP!!!!! :confused:

Noone thinks it's weird to have the two heavy gauge red wires hooked up to the amp meter? I plan on putting something between the nut and wire to see if this fixes the ground issue. I just wanted to know if I should be looking for different wires for power. Someone has to have these gauges. Just a little help needed. :o

C'mon guys! My car is sitting dead in the water. Someone has to have sunpro gauges. Or at least know where the red wires from the volt reg go after coming through the firewall. I noticed tonight that if I put the neg battery cable on my battery volts will start falling quick. Once i take the cable off my battery goes back up tp 10.75. Any thoughts on the this? I disconnected my amp gauge and still got the small sparks from the battery. This is a grounding prob right? PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :confused:

Ok, I'll go here since nobody else has. When you disconnected the guage, did you just unhook the wires at the guages? i am guessing so since your still draining power. Very likely that when you had sparks that you had some really hot wires and insulation could have easily burned off. Trace back wired that you disconnected to where they originate and disconnect from there as fried wired could be easily grounding at screw, bolt, firewall, etc. Side note: two red wires not that unusual if that's all the colored wiring previous owner had, more important where they go... old school test would be that in the case something else got tweaked in the process, pull your fuses and install them one by one and check for your power drain so you can at least see which circuit it is running through... good luck. :beers:

THANK YOU!!! I thought I was the only one reading this until I saw all the read numbers. I'll check to see if the wires are fried, but the sparks only came from the battery terminal. I didn't think about the fuses either. See what a little help can do for you. Thanks again for posting Scott. I'll keep an update of everything I try.

lol keep in mind the amp gage is INLINE with the power wire.

no ground on the - side.
what im saying is the red wires are the same power wire.
DONT short to ground .

Meaning I have a red wire to each post on the back, right? That's how it is now. The only ground that is hooked up to any of the gauges right now is to the light bulbs in the back.

In a stock setup, amperage is read with a millivolt meter connected accross a milliohm resistance. In a car's amp meter circuit, the amp meter is connected in paralell with a wire running between the regulator and terminal block behind the battery. The 3 or 4' of wire provides just enough resistance that a voltage drop will form accross it. If the voltage at the terminal block is higher than at the regulator, the amp meter reads discharge. If the regulator side is higher voltage than the terminal block, the amp meter reads charge.

Other amp meters have the resistance internal to the meter. So instead of being connected in paralell to the wire between the terminal block and regulator, the amp meter *IS* the wire between the terminal block and amp meter. In that case, the wire size is likely to be larger than a stock amp meter circuit.

I'm not sure which type your sunpro amp meter is. But in either case, both wires are hot, so they must be insulated from the meter body by plastic washers or some-such.