American Autowire Voltmeter

[pjmoreland]

I installed an American Autowire 510871 voltmeter in place of my stock ammeter. Mechanically, it fit well. The lines and text printed on the gauge are bright white instead of the light green color the stock gauges had originally. My other gauges are sun-bleached now, so they match pretty well.

The kit comes with wires and a fuse for connecting it without the use of the stock harness. The instructions say to cut off the wires that go to the original gauge at the back of the gauge cluster. Instead, I used the original wiring with the following modifications:

***EDIT***
The following approach will work, but an easier approach is shown in the diagrams in post #7
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1) Ground - The post on the passenger side of the gauge is the negative terminal. I used the original ammeter wire that runs to the positive distribution block by the battery for ground. I disconnected it from the distribution block and instead mounted it under the head of the distribution block mounting screw along with a star washer. This connected it to the metal of the fender. In stock form, this wire is connected to the other post of the ammeter though, so I had to swap the two engine compartment wires where they go into the bulkhead connector. The wire that runs to the junction by the alternator isn't actually needed anymore, but I left it in place. I did remove the 4A fuse from that wire though up in the front driver side corner of the engine compartment.

2) Positive Voltage - Since both wires are connected to positive for the stock ammeter, I disconnected the black wire coming from the driver side post of the gauge at the firewall bulkhead connector behind the fuse panel. I put a connector housing on this wire, and then plugged it into the Radio terminal on the fuse panel.