Home safe, thanks guys.

[Andries ter Hennepe]

Dear all, came home safe last wednesday from Paris. I disconnected the generator at the "Bat"connector and drove off.Then before running into a thunderstorm re connected the wire.To my surprise the ammeter was in the + a little.I never disconnected the wire again untill home only to find out the battery was almost empty on arrival.It never charged on the entire trip.Now for info: Battery is a new DC12 repro.,alternator has been renewed(internals)1 year ago and the regulator had been changed at the same time.Remember: revving pulled the ammeter in the -40 Amps, idle around 0 Amp.Oh yes, before leaving I tried to reconnect the ammeterconnector the other way round to find out this is impossible for it has a distinctive shape an can only connect one way.Any more ideas?Anyway, thank you for guidance and help,
Regards
Andries ter Hennepe

[Doug Flaten]

Re: Home safe, thanks guys.

I would disconnect the battery and put it on a charger to verify that it does not have some kind of internal short. Then hook up battery and verify that the voltage regulator is operating correctly. I still think you may have a short somewhere that is not enough to blow fuses, but will make the regulator charge the battery at a high enough rate to boil out the water. You often run into problems with poor grounds in Corvettes. In these instances you have problems getting equipment to function correctly because of a dirty or poor ground circuit. A wiring short could experience the same thing, making the short intermittent or of a reduced "intensity" that would not blow a fuse.