voltmeter swap

[bmchevy1979]

Ok I know it been asked thousands of times but I couldn't find anything 73-87 that was any good
So my question is how do you go about swapping a voltmeter in place of a ammeter in a 75 k20 I know you can't swap them out or you'll short out the truck but what wiring needs to be changed in order to do the swap. Links would be welcomed

[bmchevy1979]

Bump

[chengny]

It's way more critical when changing from a voltmeter to an ammeter - than the other way around. To decommission your ammeter, just cut the two tap leads that feed the meter. They both should have inline fuses. One is connected to the firewall junction block and one comes off the starter solenoid. Like this:




In back of your instrument panel, dike off the other ends of those same leads (leave some extra wire to run to an ignition switched power supply and to the ground bus block.




The problem will be physically mounting the voltmeter into the ammeter spot. You will have to experiment a little with which leads go to which studs on the voltmeter (if backwards the meter will peg low) and also you might have to move the little clamp sockets to line up with the voltmeter.

[bmchevy1979]

Ok thank you I believe I can make it work off of that I want to put my tach dash in and I prefer a voltmeter my 74 was a factory idiot light truck and I eliminated all the wiring except the illumination and turn signals when I put the aftermarket gauges in so I couldn't go off of that

[bmchevy1979]

Double post

[Baradium]

That's the best way to get rid of the ammeter, since there's no reason to have the current going through the dash at that point.

To swap voltmeter in place of ammeter, all you HAVE to do is tie the two wires together that fed the ammeter and put them both to the hot side of the voltmeter and then run a wire to ground on the ground side and be done.

His way is better since it gets rid of the current from where it's not needed.