i ahve a questions abotu the amp meter. Im going out this morning to buy a volt meter/tester, but i thought when i rev up the car the amp meter goes into the positive, no? when i turn on the lights it goes into the negative side quite a bit.

In that case the alternator is probably not making the power it should be. I couldn't be sure where it should move to though as the ammeter in my zed has never worked. It's quite possible that the alternator itself is fine, but the regulator is rooted.

where IS teh damn regulator? it's not the thing directly above the battery is it? or is it the box underneath the fuseable links?

BTW, how can i tell if teh FU's are bad or not?

i kinda wiggled them around while i had a VU hooked up and saw teh numbers change drasticly. also note, after abotu 3-5 minutes of running teh ALT is outputting just about 12v

could my ground wire on teh alt be bad? its attatched directly to one of the rear bolts that attatches the alt to the frame

On an aussie zed anyway, the voltage regulator is a black box on the right hand side of the engine bay, infront of the strut tower. Big plug with 6 wires going into. Will take a pic of it this arvo if ya want.

Sounds like you have a similar problem to me, not charging enough. For years I just chucked it on a charger once a week or so. Eventually I adjusted the voltage regulator which has helped, enough that I don't need an external charger. It charges well when the car is cold and it day driving, eg 14.5V, then after a few min it'll drop to 13.0 or so. At night with the lights on it's down around 12 or less.

When the new engine goes in i'll be switching to an internally regulated alternator.

i think i found it... is it under teh metal shroud that the two fuseable links are bolted too? with a black box under them with several plugs coming out of it?

Hang on....didn't notice you had a 280Z. Whoops. :stupid:

That'd probably have an internally regulated alternator. Anyone confirm?

well, not according to my alternator. it needs an external ergulator. according to my chiltons and autozone

Oh right...I seemed to recall the later 260Zs is australia had an internally regulated one, but I could be wrong.

If I remember correctly, for the U.S. cars, the 75,76 and 77 were external and the 78-up were internal

My 78 280z is internally regulated but I am not sure about the 75.

it's external i replaced it yesterday. butr this still did not fix my problem