You said Amp gauge. It should be a Volt gauge in '82.
Check around the fuse block. The wire that runs from the alternator back through the firewall to the fuse block into the harness can be an issue. Mine was melted and bubba'd awhile back. It haunted me for awhile until I spotted the splice and corrosion. After I properly repaired the wire it's been good.
I had a problem with the purple wire the went from the neutral safety switch to the starter.
(My car is a stick car, so I'm not sure off hand where the neutral safety switch is on the automatics.)
Somewhere in the harness it shorted out giving me starting issues. I just wound up running a new wire from the neutral safety switch to the starter solenoid. That solved my problem up until this past summer. Now my neutral safety switch went bad.
So it has a jumper wire in it to bypass it until I get a chance to put a new one in.
Try jumping the starter solenoid (where the small wire connects too) terminal to the hot battery (big) terminal on the starter and see if it cranks the engine. If it does. Then turn the ignition key to on then jump the terminal and see if it cranks and starts the engine. Let us know what happens.
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GEN III 5.7L "LS6" Engine swap
TKO500 5 spd.
3.54 Dana 44
