I am trying to resurrect my 69 firebird that I have had in my garage for 39 years. It runs great but wont charge. I have tried alternator and external regulator replacement, wiring checking under hood etc, but still not charging. I had car at restoration place for work; they re-did some mechanical items for me and tried to figure out the electrical issue, but are not able to complete the electrical evaluation/repair for me for some reasons due to covid they say. Anyway, I believe the issue is dash area; circuit board, ignition switch, maybe even wiring under dash (?). I have the factory stacked gauges, factory tach. Tach works, headlights work, but none of the lights (gen) in the dash work. Gas gauge and horn doesn't work either. I get the car back early next week and am thinking of taking a look at it myself to see if I can repair it. I was hoping some people here have had the same issue and could shed some insight. Has anyone ever replaced their circuit board or ignition switch? Wondering what the difficulty level is; seems like wouldn't be too challenging, but I haven't looked at it yet.
Thanks for taking the time to review my issue, Jon
Did you replace the regulator with a original points style or the newer electronic one? A lot of the replacements are bad out of the box, made in china. The original mounting on 7 and 8s on the radiator support used rubber well nuts and have to have a separate ground wire with 9s on the firewall I don't remember if it's the same but either way it needs to be grounded. I have heard if the electronic ones are run ungrounded it can smoke them. There are many good videos on the internet just search my externally regulated alternator won't charge and go into the wiring diagram for your car and start probing and testing. I am sure you can get a lot of different answers from people with what they found with theirs but it's really best to just methodically test and diagnose, it won't take that long. The gen light in the dash might be a clue but the problem is with a car that sat that long it's common for those to burn out or more likely have a bad connection, they are push in style bulbs. One last thing is did you clean all the connections good? I have been dealing with old cars a long time and the connections corrode from just sitting there. I find instead of scraping and sanding tiny connectors it is much easier and effective to use a toilet bowl cleaner called the works. Just put some in a cup and dip the connectors in for about 30 seconds or so and they come out clean. follow up with a dip in water and blow out with air. and of course always follow up with a little dielectric grease to keep it perfect in the future. You would be surprised how better things work when they get full voltage with no resistance, especially headlights.
Thank you very much for responding Barnbird! I did use an original style external regulator screwed to the firewall. Good advice on cleaning connections; I didn't make that a priority and will certainly do that! Thanks for the videos suggestion too, I will look into those. I get the car back this week and will start the troubleshooting process and follow up with outcome. Thanks again, Jon