I can rebuild nearly anything mechanical but to my eternal frustration the concept of electricity flow still eludes me no matter how many hours I pore over schematics. Words like be very careful doing this strike fear into my soul so bare with me please.
Are you saying the junction block itself may be providing a ground to the body and potentially that ground is poor? I hear you about checking the TSM but am making sure I'm understanding correctly.
Agree about the Ammeter swing but I have nothing that would draw that kind of current, especially of a cyclical nature like I was seeing. This is what was so confounding. After pulling my gauge clusters and inspecting the gauges, the PCB had dark circles where the Ammeter posts passed through it. Searching the Forum lead me to believe the gauge was overheating already so I just bad so I bypassed it. I realize the ignorance is bliss approach is ill advised but I feel sooooo much better not watching that needle bounce like that.
I do want to install headlight relays but haven't got around to it yet, the headlight switch is new but I understand that's no guarantee of proper function.
No idle solenoid on the truck although it came with it. Thank god because there's too much crap up there on the intake manifold as it is.
I don't see anything aftermarket under the dash but it's a spaghetti bowl under there. It all looks stock though.
I did add relays to the rear window motor and ran a dedicated wire on a circuit breaker to them for power in an attempt to clean that part up.
My bet is the new regulator is of poor quality but plan to have the alternator checked to be sure.