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I converted my 1950 Plymouth Deluxe 251cc Flathead from a 6 volt to a 12 volt system. Got the alternator from a friend replaced the original generator with it. The alternator charges well and has a module / sensor to determine if charging is needed. The problem: when the engine is at idle and I remove the positive battery post, the engine runs so much smoother. Put the cable back on the battery post and the engine labors quite noticeably. Revving the engine with the battery post off, it revs well and responds quickly. Revving the engine with the battery post on, is labors and it revs noticeably slower. Any thoughts?

I'm at the stage where I needed to install the antenna for my stock Mopar 802 radio into the '40 wagon, but I didn't want to drill holes in the cowl. I considered the "Roadway" running board mounted setup, but even if it worked, I was still stuck listening to local AM stations (mostly news, Spanish language, or religious broadcasts) so I was looking for an alternative. I remember seeing a company in Wisconsin that used your existing AM radio, 6 or 12 volt, negative or positive ground, with or WITHOUT an antenna, that would play your tunes from an mp3 player, iPod, phone, etc., through your stock radio, but I couldn't remember the name. Then I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night with the part of the name: Ready-radio, or something to that effect. Google came up with RediRad so I contacted them at their website and after a little research, ordered the 6 volt, positive ground model, which was $99. The next weekend I installed it but it didn't really work- I could barely hear the music, with lots of static. I played around with the ground, took power directly from the battery, etc, with no luck. I emailed them, explaining the situation. Matt, the owner/tech guy, suggesting a few different causes and offering to call me to discuss. Matt called yesterday, and talked me through the setup steps, and voila! it worked! Turns out my tuner was slightly off (you need to tune in to AM 1000). After that Matt and I talked for about 10 minutes (they are apparently all old car dudes at RediRad) and he asked if they could add a picture of the Plymouth on their website. Matt mentioned that they could have saved some money by offshoring the RediRad components, but decided to support American companies and purchase everything from US suppliers and manufacture them here. It is so refreshing in our supposed "service" economy to work with companies that walk the talk and seem to actually care about their customers. Now I can listen to the Beach Boys like back in the day! Here is their web link: RediRad - Rediscover Your Radio