[bubbahotep]

Originally Posted by nortin

Well, my 71 Nova has a volts guage AND an amps guage and I'm wondering? They've both been there for about 14 years,so when should I expect my car to go up in smoke? It's like this,an amps guage is a simple mechanism thats designed to indicate current flow.Therefore theres gonna be some electricity involved !! And IF you wire up your house in a slap hazard fashion where wires can chafe or vibrate loose and arc ,,,or be shorted by some unexpected conductor,you WILL have a burnt out house you can call home! Pretty simple to understand. Same rules apply with the car you put an amps guage into. Do it right and protect the work from shorts,arcing,use proper grommets where wires go through metal,,and it'll work fine for the duration. The bull about every amps guage being an imminant fire starter is simply that,,bull. By the same token,give the job the opportunity to start a fire and it will do what you give it permission to do!,,that being,burn. Lets not lose sight of the fact that ANY "hot" wire on a car that is not kept insulated and is grounded WILL burn your ride to the ground. An amps guage is no different and they have been in use in all manner of vehicles since the roaring 20's.

You responded to a thread thats 5 years old But no matter how great you wire an amp meter it WILL burn. The amp meter has ALL of the power that the car uses going through it. As you add bigger fans, bigger elec fuel pumps, ignition systems, higher output headlights etc you are putting more current through a system that wasnt designed to handle it.