Hello everyone. I am new to this forum, and I am the owner of a 1941 dodge D19 luxury liner sedan. I purchased this car last July, and, while it moved under it's own power, it was far from roadworthy. I have since been working on making it safe (and daily driveable, as crazy as it sounds) for the last 11 months. I have opted to tackle the project of bringing her back to life, but it had been a little bit of a challenge for me... this car is way before my time (57 years befor I was born!) and therefore I have a few questions that may seem like basic knowledge, but confuses the heck out of me!
However, she made her first voyage yesterday, a 15 minute drive from the shop to my house. Now that I am seriously looking at the final phases of getting her roadworthy again, something crossed my mind. As far as I know, these dodges were 6v positive ground. This appears to be an all original system, so I am going to assume it is still positive ground and not a 6v negative ground system.
When I purchased the car, it moved and drove (with a cracked radiator) but had no headlights/tail lights, dash lights, horn or fuel guage. The owner had a 6v battery in it. I have since rewired and replaced all the exterior lights, and put a new 6v battery in it. When I replaced the battery, I installed it the exact same way as the last owner, with the negative cable on the negative terminal and positive on positive. I then replaced the OEM headlight switch with another OEM one, but could not get the headlights to work no matter how many grounds I cleaned or how many times I double checked the wiring. I ended up tapping into the ignition switch and they work like a charm, the switch is functional with the car running but if i turn the ignition off, he headlights will turn off as well. But now I am second guessing it after realizing my positive ground system, could the switch initially being non-functional be related to my battery being hooked up as neg ground? The horn has actually worked only one time in 11 months, but every other time all I get when I press the switch is a metallic "thunk" noise like the relay, but no horns.
Now the big reason I am questioning this is, my amp meter appears to read backwards. When I start the car and rev it, the amp meter will go down. When I press the horn, even though it doesn't work, and the relay clicks the amp meter goes up. Before I drove it back to the house, I tested the voltage and it was getting 7 volts...from a generator at idle? I made the drive successfully, but about two blocks from my house the generator began whining, and when I popped the hood I noticed smoke coming out of it. I then realized that the generator had oil caps (DUH!) And I filled it with about 6 drops of oil. I only saw one fill on the top as far as I know. Fast forward to today, I start it for the first time after dropping oil in it, and it makes the same squeal for about 10 seconds before quieting down completely again. Although I did not run it for more than about a minute. I will check the voltage again tomorrow.
So, now after thinking about the positive ground stuff (especially the backwards amp meter) I am totally confused about several things. Could the electronics not have been working because the battery was installed neg cable to neg terminal? If everything seems to work now, besides fuel guage and horn, do I even touch it? Is the fuel guage not working because of another component or the wiring issue? Is that why the generator began to smoke and squeal, or is it because it was out of oil? And finally...is it really as simple as draining the battery, recharging with the positive lead from the charger on the negative terminal, and then reinstalling the battery with the pos cable on neg terminal? Or do I have to switch wires on the generator too? I am fairly nervous now, thank you in advance for all your help.