My '76 245 is acting up in a strange way lately. I rescued this car from the Pacific Northwest rainforest a few weeks ago, got it running quite well, and started to drive it the 25 miles home. It made it the first 20 miles (mostly backroads and some highway) without incident, but in the last 5 miles (surface streets) I noticed that the coolant gauge and gas gauge were dropping together. I pulled off the road and shut it down, everything looked fine, and the car would not restart. I left it and returned that night with a freshly charged battery to drive it home. I was driving with the lights on, of course, and after a short while the gauges started dropping again and the lights started to dim. At a stop light a block from home, it started to sputter and died. Dead battery, no restart.

I finally got it home, and discovered that the alternator seems to not be charging at all (checked with voltmeter, 9 volts when running). The funny thing is, this is a new rebuilt alternator with only about 1500 miles on it. I'll pull it off today and have Schuck's test it tomorrow, but I suspect that maybe something else has gone wrong. Any ideas of where to start? Could the exciter wire be messed up somehow? Other wiring issues?

I should also mention another interesting fact--in all of this, the "amp" light on the dash never comes on. Is that important, irrelevant, or what?

Thanks in advance--
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George, Seattle WA