No power

(Referring to 6/15/72 wiring Diagram)

To clarify the power from the battery, there are two black wires from the battery - one is the large wire running to the starter solenoid. The other is going to the ammeter. Then a black wire comes out of the ammeter and has a junction (well hidden in the harness) where, in essence, 4 pink wires are connected, two going to the fuse box #7 (30) amp & #8 (15) amp. With the other two pink wires, one goes to the headlight switch, and the other goes to the ignition switch. These wires are hot and power fuses or switches

The Power Distribution diagram above outlines the "P" (Pink wires).

Personally, I eliminated my ammeter and installed a voltmeter. There are a number of posts regarding possible problems with an ammeter, which may be the source of your problem.

AhHa! Don't borrow!

Volt meter

@husker posted:

Sharkey,

Nice! Hmm... Father's Day is coming up.....

I was of the same mind and bought one on Amazon. 😀

@jag13cat,

Those two pink wires feed fuses 7, 8, & 9.  Those three fuses are unswitched.

John

Unstitched?

Now that I thought about it probably unswitched.

John;

You are correct - the pink wires do service fuses 7, 8, & 9, bridged on back of fuse box.

An update. I had Autozone test the battery and they said it is healthy. 94% charge and 12.4v.

The ammeter isn’t an issue as it was already deleted. The battery and alternator wire are bolted together.  

Now this will sound odd but take it with a grain of salt from someone who doesn’t know auto electronics.  It seems like the polarity in the car is wrong, or the car is ungrounded. I tried testing the power wire coming from the battery to the where it was bolted to the wire from alternator and nothing. I took a power probe to one of the switches and gave it ground and power came to the car; the courtesy light came on and the electronic fuel pump came on. Thoughts?

Maybe the battery is installed the wrong way?  On the battery look for the post with a minus ( - ) and make sure it is connected to the chassis ground in the front trunk.

I wish it were that simple but unfortunately the cables are connected properly.

Maybe unbolt and clean this lug

Steve also mentioned the cleaning the connections at the harness ground stud in a prior post.

It's located sort of behind the tach, a little above center on the left side of the photo. The round tube is the cowl vent drain.

You mentioned you'd changed the ignition switch too? Maybe recheck the connections/retighten the set screws in the flat four wire connector that joins the switch to the car wiring?

Here is the stud with the dash off.

When you used the power probe, was the power probe supplying the power?  If so, that could have powered (back-fed) multiple items.

Check the connection of the two original ammeter wires behind the gauge console.  You may have a bad connection at that point.

John

Thanks, everyone for helping me troubleshoot.

John. I definitely used the power probe to supply ground, not the power, and that is when the car came alive.  I also dug into the console yesterday and tested the ammeter connections with the VOM and there was no reading with the positive probe on the wire and the negative on multiple places on the chasis.

Later today I am going to do the usual backflip contortion thing and check the ground under the dash as well make sure the negative connection in the trunk is corrosion free so I can continue the process of elimination.

Have you tried probing from the battery positive post to the ground stud in the front trunk?  

On the '72 and later cars, the battery positive post has two wires connected to it.  The large wire goes directly to the starter solenoid, and the smaller wire goes directly to the ammeter.  

Have you tried probing from the ammeter connection directly to the battery negative post; if ok, then to the ground stud in the trunk; if ok, then to one of the ground wires at the central ground connection under the dash?  

John

Steve. You were correct. It was in fact the the terminal in the front trunk. I can’t believe it but it was corroded. The car was not grounded.  

When I tested the terminal with the probe like John suggested it indicated no ground. The wire connected to the negative battery post however did indicate it was grounded.  

It looks like she is in fact alive. Many thanks!!

I am glad it’s working. Enjoy.

Also, when you have the time, it might make sense to check similar connections downstream from the positive battery terminal. That would be the solenoid on both sides, the starter, and the ground strap where it connects the chassis to the ZF.  All of those points are somewhat prone to corrosion. Cleaning those could prevent starting problems down the road.