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Technical The bad ground trick.. and I fell for it...

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by bobss396, May 2, 2016.

  1. I had the parking lights for my '59 Ford all set to install, wired up with new sockets and new Dorman weather-tite connectors, 3 wires to be correct. The mating connectors were wired into the car, probably 8 months ago and wired per the Kwik Wire manual. All I had to do is plug the bad boys in and secure the wire bundles.

    Driver side, got a signal only, no parking light. Passenger side.... nothing. I pull both parking light assemblies, check everything with a meter, looks good and matches my scribbled notes. Even open up the splices (crimp then shrink made by Dorman) on the pass. side and redo them. All back together... still the same. I may have had an intermittent bad connection on that side.

    Looking at the Kwik Wire book, it was something like tan and light blue on one side, tan and blue on the other, which covers the parking and signal connections. It never came to me that this was a 3-wire connector, even though I had looked at it about 30X that day. My buddy stops by, looks and listens, asks about the ground wire. Ground wire? It comes back to me.

    If the grille and hood were off it, I would have seen it right away. There is a THIRD wire on the car end of the 3-wire connector, to the OG Ford ground location. We jumped the ground to the bumper... everything worked perfect, both sides. The ground wires were a bugger to get to, but popped both of them off and scuffed everything up. Back together, worked perfect.

    Long story, but a good ending. When I painted everything, I forgot to look at the grounds before I closed the whole dealie back up. But it drove us nuts for more time than I'll admit to... even down to swapping bulbs.
     
  2. Jet96
    Joined: Dec 24, 2012
    Posts: 1,431

    Jet96
    Member
    from WY

    Man, if I had a dollar for every time a wiring problem wound up being a ground issue...I'd buy everyone a beer:)

    Thanks for the reminder!
     
    CowboyTed likes this.
  3. evintho
    Joined: May 28, 2007
    Posts: 2,363

    evintho
    Member

    Yep, grounds are important. Chasing down electrical gremlins are not tops on my 'fun things to do' list! On my last ride I grounded every circuit to a dedicated buss bar and tied that into the battery ground at the frame. That and 2 ground straps from engine block to frame pretty much eliminated any grounding issues!

    [​IMG]
     
    Hnstray and Gotgas like this.
  4. squirrel
    Joined: Sep 23, 2004
    Posts: 55,942

    squirrel
    Member

    grounds are fun. The front turn signal sockets in my 57 suburban were not grounding between the housing, and the metal sleeve that the bulb sits in. that was fun to fix, although it didn't take me too long to find it (the bulb lit up when I put the meter lead on both the pieces at the same time)
     
    lothiandon1940 likes this.

  5. The same thing happened to us. I had wired the car 100% and otherwise had checked everything as I went. I saved all my wiring notes so I could go back if I had to.. and I had to. There was some funky feedback going on. I knew some of the OG steering column (directional switch) wiring was hard to read the colors, we had narrowed those down as we went. So it was doubted that far back.
     
  6. 50dodge4x4
    Joined: Aug 7, 2004
    Posts: 3,534

    50dodge4x4
    Member

    I have been double grounding everything electrical for years. About 20 years ago a very smart guy taught me to find an easy to access spot on a frame rail, grind both side clean, drill a 1/4" hole through the frame, then bolt a 1/4" x 20 x 1" long bolt and nut to that spot on the frame and tighten the bolt/nut tight. Then any electrical item within 3' of that bolt gets a separate ground wire with a 1/4" eyelet connector on it. On the nut side of the bolt, you add a flat washer, install as many eyelet ground wires as you need, add another flat washer, and another nut gets tightened to the bolt. You have a semi permanent ground that you can remove wires, add wires simply be removing one nut, and have a place to use as a ground for a test light. Whenever the ground stud starts looking a little funky, you remove the bolt, clean off the metal, and install a new bolt, washers, wires eyelets and nuts.
    Generally, I have one of these ground studs on the front frame, the rear frame, on the firewall, on the front fenders, and under the dash. A 10 gauge wire connects all important electrical components together, and also connects between the fire wall, front fenders, front frame, and neg battery terminal. All light sockets are grounded with a wire to one of these studs. Might sound like a lot of overkill, but I don't have many wiring issues. Gene
     
    firstinsteele, e1956v and Jet96 like this.
  7. CowboyTed
    Joined: Apr 27, 2015
    Posts: 343

    CowboyTed
    Member

    Jet96, is that you, Dwight?

    Long ago, I frequented a car forum and learned a truism about problems with electrical circuits from another poster named Dwight. We all called it "Dwight's Rule" which is: It's always a bad ground. "IAABG" It's a truism of course because electrical circuits only work when the juice flows from the battery, through the business end of the circuit, and then to ground. There are a million reasons, of course, why the juice might fail to flow to ground, but it MUST flow to ground for the circuit to function.

    We all got good at reciting IAABG on that forum. We also got good at looking for the bad ground first thing whenever we had an electrical problem. I remember Dwights Rule to this day, and it has got me back on the road time after time in my jalopies.
     
    firstinsteele and slack like this.
  8. Jet96
    Joined: Dec 24, 2012
    Posts: 1,431

    Jet96
    Member
    from WY

    Nope not Dwight, but "Dwight's Rule" is a good rule to live by!
     
  9. miker98038
    Joined: Jan 24, 2011
    Posts: 1,143

    miker98038
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    I agree with all the above, can't have too many ground blocks. Bolted steel connections tend to fail over time. On old cars, they might not be good from the get go.

    Go to electrical department, and buy some Copperkote. It's similar to anti-sieze, but copper based for electrical work. Messy, but it works. No problems, no corrosion, no stuck on the side of the road. Use it on all connection (+ or -) especially if exposed to weather.
     
  10. stimpy
    Joined: Apr 16, 2006
    Posts: 3,546

    stimpy

    learned my lesson when the new O/T OBDII vehicles came out , they have multiple grounds but go to different systems and most do not interconnect on its way to the computer or devices , many a problem caused by one ground wire not being hooked up .
     
  11. theHIGHLANDER
    Joined: Jun 3, 2005
    Posts: 10,245

    theHIGHLANDER
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Star washers, mmm, good...
     
    Drunk Man likes this.
  12. I think my case was a rush job to get the front of the car painted and buttoned up. Plus this was a while ago. I make mental notes and poooffff... it's gone over a period of many months.

    Under the dash, I have a few ground points and stack a couple grounds on each. I was able to follow the Ford convention pretty closely. I have a separate terminal strip for gauge power and all the dash lights.
     
  13. I use those too... stainless. Almost all my hardware is stainless.
     
  14. stimpy
    Joined: Apr 16, 2006
    Posts: 3,546

    stimpy

    ever see the pictures of the race shops were they put a list on the windsheild?? , over the years I found out it actually works as long as the paper doesn't fade.. ( wife made me a drawer of wide painters tape , sharpies , post it notes and small legal pads ) I live in a sea of yellow squares now !
     
  15. Truck64
    Joined: Oct 18, 2015
    Posts: 5,325

    Truck64
    Member
    from Ioway

    No connection (heh) with the co., but NO-OX is good stuff, inexpensive and lasts a long time. Been around a hundred years. It's a conductive grease, good for ground and electrical connections especially in corrosive environments. [​IMG]
     
  16. With the stock cars, each car had a hook mounted above the windshield and a clip board hung off it. Really important stuff was entered on the windshield with a tire crayon. This time around, my list is inside the car so the wind doesn't take it.
    413-004-LIST.jpg
     

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