A Few Electrical Questions - 1972 Plymouth

As mentioned in another thread, I'm fixing up a '72 Plymouth Fury III. I have a few electrical items I'm curious about.


My biggest concern is the ammeter. I read online that with age, these can fail catastrophically (read as: car fire) since they carry the entire load of the alternator through the firewall into the dash. Mine is working at the moment, but I'm curious which wires under the hood run to the ammeter so I can bypass it if necessary. I also read that with ammeters in general (not with Chrysler ones specifically), they can be converted to work as voltmeters instead by adding resistors. Has anyone done this on their Chrysler vehicles? Sounds like a pretty straightforward conversion that could add some piece of mind to an old electrical system.

Next item would be the distributor. I remember growing up lots of people saying Chrysler vehicles ran poorly in the rain. My first car was a Plymouth, and sure enough, it did run poorly when it was raining. I later heard there was a very simple fix for this involving the distributor, but I can't seem to find that fix anywhere online. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Seems like something I should do to this car while I'm fixing it up.

The old alternator in the car is weak (discharges when under too much load). I bought a remanufactured unit it and it solved my charging problem, but the bearings on the reman unit are already failing (surprise, surprise). I'm going to buy a new alternator instead and found an affordable, American-made one that puts out 95 amps. I assume the original was 60 amps. Any risk in going with the higher amperage? My understanding is it will only generate what the car "asks" for, so it doesn't matter. But then I thought back to the old ammeter; if it has an issue, it may "ask" for more current than what it actually should have. Wouldn't then a higher amp alternator be more likely to cause an electrical fire?

Last thing is very minor, but I noticed there are a couple little lights that shine on the ignition and headlight switch when getting in the car at night. Very cool idea, but they don't seem to work consistently. I'm curious how they work so that I can make them function properly. I'm speculating that they are supposed to come on when the door opens and then stay on for a minute or so after the door is shut.


Opinions or info on any/all of these four items are much appreciated.