when your car is running the gage does NOT tell you battery voltage vs alternator voltage.

That gauge can tell you only one thing, and that is how much voltage is at the battery right now...in other words 'alternator voltage'.

 

I think that this is the problem. I ran the car for about 5 minutes and checked the voltages last night. I was getting 12.65v across battery before start, 13.5v while running, and 14.5v from the alternator to ground. After i shut it off i touched the cable from the battery to alternator and it was very hot. I believe that the cable is probably corroded and/or coming apart inside of the insulation causing a high resistance. This is not allowing the alternator to charge the battery at times, causing the low readings and killing the battery. I do have new cables that i ordered from innovative wiring last week. I will have to install those and see what happens.

With the gage reading the voltage of the system, i couldn't understand why it was so low if the alternator was putting out enough voltage. But i think the resistance in the wire between the alternator and the battery dropped the voltage reading down low.

Thanks guys,
-Greg

 

Well the problem seems to be fixed.

I installed the new positive and negative battery cables and immediately got 14.5 volts across the battery and the gage was above the half mark (~14V). I have been driving it for three days now and it hasn't dropped below 13 on the gage.

Just wanted to let everyone know that helped me and anyone who searches how i fixed the problem.

Thanks,
-Greg

 

Sounds good. I have been having some issues with mine hitting the red on the gauge as well and not being able to get power to the battery.

I'm going to clean my grounds sometime soon and then get after it with the meter as well, checking the things you did.

Thanks for the ideas!