[Judge Smails]

Hello all,
Finally got around to restarting the beast after going over the electrical system (so I thought)...and getting the #$^$ water out of the cyls! Just under a nice healthy 15v for the first couple minutes then, here we go again...after about 2 minutes, dzzzt!...voltmeter back down to 12 or less, just like before, only this time it was occasionally bouncing slightly OVER 15v first. Once in a while it would kick back up to normal but rarely. This time however I did notice that when operating the windows or the headlight switch the tach would momentarily spike up by 100-200 rpm. The aftermkt oil temp gauge in the map pocket would also tick up slightly when operating the lights, the trans temp gauge in the same place a little less so. When the voltage was below normal there was NO magnetic pull on the screwdriver when placed at the back of the alt. Sound like a bad inst cluster GND or a FUBAR regulator in the alt? FWIW, alt is 130A and has only about 1K miles on it. Thanks in advance to everyone.

[Judge Smails]

...also forgot to mention it has an MSD 6A on it...?

["QUICK-SILVER"]

Guage twitch with power change is normal.
I would definitely have the alternator checked out. One, two or three wire, once it starts charging, it should at least maintain 14.5 volts, no matter what the amp load.