Made it back home for memorial day so got some progress in on the truck. Not much but it was nice to work on it once again. Still plagued with electrical issues that I am very slowly sorting out.
Decided to paint up the hood hinges after determining they needed cleaning and oiling. Forgot to get a picture with them installed.
Also painted part of the gauge cluster after cleaning it up as well.
Some random progress shots.
The interior is looking much better but I really need to address the floor. Hopefully can save up enough to buy some replacement panels replace the floors and the rest of the rust on the truck.
Glamor shot.
And last but not least...finally was able to drive it into town!
Had to pick up some mattress that my friend brought back. Made the trip to town and back three times just for fun.
Now onto the issues that I need answers for.
Firstly.. My interior lights (dash illumination and cargo lamp) and my license plate light are somehow tied into the brake switch. They only turn on when I hit the brake. Also I don't have any courtesy lights at all. I redid my taillight harness and im pretty darn sure I wired up everything correctly so I have no idea what is happening there. I didn't have any time to look into this issue this weekend.
Secondly.. My charging system is somehow f'ed up. Truck starts up perfectly fine with a charged battery but my battery voltage is only at 11.3-11.6 volts when driving the truck. I looked into this a little bit but did not make it very far. Here are the measurements I took.
Charged battery to 12.15V and then connected to truck.
Started it up.
@800 rpm (idle)
Battery Voltage: 11.8V
Alternator:
small wire of 2 spade connection (ignition?) - 9.22V
big wire of 2 spade connection (constant power) - 0V?
back of alternator connection - 11.74V
Junction block on firewall: 11.72V
Negative of Bat -> Alt Case: 6.3mV
Ideas? I tried a couple times to get a measurement on the big wire 2 spade connection but every-time I got 0V. I assuming this is supposed to be 12V, not 0V but I'm not sure why. I rewired the engine harness as well using the harness from my 78 donor truck. The wires all looked good when I rewired the harness but everything is in wire loom now so I wasn't able to trace the wires when debugging this issue (didnt have enough time).
Thoughts?
EDIT: Also I went though every ground I could find and used a grinder to polish up a bare metal ground. Went though with an ohm meter and grounds all show about 0.2 ohms.