[Brobrian]

Okay, Gentlemen.

For those of you who gave advice and counsel:

I rechecked for clean connections to the batt. all good there.

Stuck the battery on the charger just to insure that I wasn't trying to charge a bad or low battery. Came to full charge within ten minutes on 2 amps. So, again, all good.

Checked the fan belt, at first I thought it was fine, but decided to change it out anyway. Turns out the belt had been slipping. After installing the new belt, the alternator immediately began charging at over 20 amps (I only have a 20 amp ammeter). I felt the face of the ammeter and it felt warm and the charging rate hadn't dropped. Shut down the car. Felt the alternator and pulley. The whole thing was too hot to touch. Tried again a bit later same result.

Today I swapped out the alternator for one I'd bought for my p/u. Works perfectly!

Showed an initial charge of 15 amps, but within a minute or two registered zero. Turning on the lights showed a bump in the charge rate and seconds later back to zero.

So, I'm back on the road, even at night. And I'll be taking my other alternator in to a shop to see if it doesn't have the wrong diode, or whatever. Seems like it might be set up for a 12 volt battery.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Brian