Removing Daytona Amp Meter

When I remove my Daytona Ammeter can I simple connect the two wires together so the car will run with out damaging the voltage regulator or alternator?
The ammeter had stopped working but the alternator was still putting out a charge.
I would be very appreciative of talking with someone who has experience with this particular area of the car.
Best
Portenos

 

When I remove my Daytona Ammeter can I simply connect the two wires together so the car will run with out damaging the voltage regulator or alternator?
The ammeter had stopped working. It just points to zero, straight up, but the alternator was still putting out a charge at the battery.
I would be very appreciative of talking with someone who has experience with this particular area of the car or knowing who would be the best person to contact.
Best
Portenos

 

Can the Magneti Marelli voltage regulator be rebuilt?
Who would preform the rebuild?
Is a new one available?
Best
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Yes, you can remove the ammeter and use a 5mm bolt and nut to connect the two power wires in order to run the car. The ammeter acts just like a connector between the two wire (but measures the current flowing through the wire), so removing it and connecting the wires will not damage anything.
You can rebuild your original Marelli voltage regulator by taking it apart, removing all of the old internals and soldering a modern solid state regulator to the terminals inside of the original regulator. The modern regulator costs around $50 or so.
You can also purchase a modern reproduction of your voltage regulator with modern internals for a few hundred dollars.
https://www.gtoengineering.com/products/voltage-regulator-magneti-marelli-el00048n

 

Have you tested the alternator? You can check the full output of the alternator by full-fielding the regulator and then measuring the output of the alternator (voltage and amperage). To full field the alternator, disconnect the wires from the voltage regulator and make a male to male jumper wire and connect the green wire (power from the fusebox regulatore fuse) to the white wire (field terminal of the alternator). This will cause the alternator to make maximum output, so if you rev the engine the voltage should go very high (16v+), and it should put out max amperae (45A). Do not rev the engine so that the max voltage goes above 15v or you may damage your Marelli Digiplex ignition control units.

 

Thank you Motob, Much appreciated.
Ciao,
Portenos

 

Rutlands's has the red box regulators in stock rebuilt/exchange.

 

Thank you.
P

 

While you are at it, get rid of the Scotch Lock (blue connector) and do a proper butt splice. Butt connector, crimped and heat shrink. Scotch Locks are the Devil's work.

 

Good point. Consider it done. Delivered the wire wheels and new XWX tires over to LA yesterday for trueing & balancing.
RW4300 and RW 4075
P

 

Or even better, skip the butt connector and do a proper soldering t-joint connection + heat shrink.

 

Hi Motob,
How can I get in contact with you? I am not sure how to send an message through Chat???
Ciao,
Portenos

 

Those old style ammeters were a bad idea. Old Jeeps caught fire when they went bad.

Basically the whole load has to run through it to get a reading. You can leave it in place and just run a bypass. Couple of ways to do it.

One is to connect both leads to one post. Not sure if they are screw and nut posts. If they are you just put them on the same post and you are done. Ammeter won’t function. This is what I did on my Jeep J10.

Next you can run a wire from the alternator to the battery. Path of least resistances skips ammeter. Ammeter does not function. Need to consider external voltage regulator in that case.

If it were me I would run a fat bypass wire to the battery and replace the ammeter with a period voltmeter.

 

The voltmeter sounds like a wonderful idea for my 1980 400i, as I have a idea that the Daytona may be wired similarly since they are both "pre-computer" ear. How would you wire that? Thank you so very much, in advance. Jq.

 

Scownam,
Thank you for your comments. Will take it under advisement.
Ciao,
Portenos

 

Cool thing about a voltmeter is you just need to tap a positive lead. If replacing ammeter your could use that lead. The load it takes is just to move the needle so it’s next to zero. Similar to an ammeter it can tell you the health of your electrical system. You just need to know what to look for.

This looks 80s

 

Took the Daytona out for a drive today top down. Ran it east on I 10 for about 10 miles and back at high speed and everything seem to settle in just fine.
The amp meter was on full charge for a few miles then settled down to 5 to 6 amp +. Does your Daytona Fuse panel look like this one?
Can other Daytona owners post some photos of their fuse panel?
Ciao,
Portenos
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Thank you Scowman, for your input. Jq.

 

Depending on build year, original delivery destination, etc., all Daytona fuse/relay panels look pretty much the same with some component quantity and lay-out variations.

 

The panel looks a lot like the one on my 1978 308. Those bullet fuses get hot when the spring action gets week which happens over time.

It looks riveted as well. The rivets corode and heat up over time. Trick was to solder them to the board. Not sure about that with a Daytona. Might not be considered a good fix for that car and it cannot be undone like the other fixes I mentioned above.

 

All of the Ferrari's that use those early fuse-boxes with rivets suffer from poor connections that lead to high resistance and voltage drops at the rivet to fuse holder junction. Soldering the input and output male spades to the buss bars and fuse holders fixes the problem. If you try to tighten up the rivet connections by compressing the rivet to improve the connection, the plastic housing of the fuse block will crack, and you will be buying a new fuse block.

 

Yeah soldering is an easy DIY fix. If it were me I would try to get another fuse board and modernize that one in a way the old one can be put back to original. With a car like the Daytona, any mods I make I would always want to be able to go back to original. With the 308 who cares?

 

To recap my Daytona electrical charging problems, which have now been resolved I want to share the cure.
With the valued assistance of Motob and Gary the Tech at Ferrari of Rancho Mirage dealership we proceed to check and clean as many ground connections as possible. This accomplished 80% of the cure.
Next the Alternator and Voltage regulator was removed and tested on the test bench which eliminated those two items as a source of the problems.
Then the final culprit was the little black junction block which had the large 4 or 6 gauge wires going in and out (see photo below) We removed the wires and the block and took a round wire brush on a drill and cleaned up the insides really well and also cleaned up the wires and set screws. Put it all back together and "BINGO" 12.7 volts at the key and to the voltage regulator. Problem solved.
The amp meter does tend to flicker a little but I can live with that for now and will look for a new or rebuilt voltage regulator at some point in the future and have it ready to go if when needed.
Photos below show the bench testing.
Ciao
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That is some killer old equipment! Ground and connector cleanup is always a good idea.

What’s that relay not connected to anything?

 

I think it was for some EPA equipment when the car was federalized back in the late 70's.
That equipment does not exist anymore, so the relay just hangs out there
Ciao
Portenos