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By Hutz 292 - 13 Years Ago
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Hey everyone just wanted to throw this out there because I just went through it. I have a 62 F100 4X4 with fuel injection and a lot of other electronics wired into it. I have MSD 6AL box, fuel injection computer, trans control computer, electric fans and electric gauges. When I installed all this of course I was in a little bit of a hurry and just ran all my grounds to random placed on the truck and borrowed power from wires and ran most of my feeds from a relay. For the longest time I was having lots of trouble at idle, my spark was very intermittent and spirratic. I was condemning my 6AL box for a long time. Then one day we were watching it idle and noticed that when the electric fans kicked on it seemed to cause the funny idle. I broke down one day and decided to completely redo my feeds and ground. I ran all the grounds to a centralized location that went directly to the battery. I ran my 6AL wiring straight the battery posts (just like it says in the instructions) and separated my power wires to the ones that were low amperage (like gauges and computer wires) and ran my high amperage wires to batter (like my electric fans, coil and 6AL). I got it all together and it started right up and runs absolutely PERFECT! My truck has never ran so good. I can be the easiest thing to over look. Just because a ground will light a test light doesn't mean that there is not a lot of resistance in that circuit. My truck is almost 50 years old so that ground has to pass through 50 years of rust and contaminated metal. So if you are having strange problems it is a good idea just to recheck the basics. Always check you F & G's. (Feeds and Grounds). Robi
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By lyonroad - 13 Years Ago
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For sure. On my '56 M 100 I put copper grounding tabs (1/8 thick) with brass (copper would be better) studs - one at the back, two at he front and one under the dash all connected directly to the negative post with #12 and bigger wire. I ran all of my grounds to these tabs.
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By rick55 - 13 Years Ago
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What you have said is correct. You must ascertain what the load of a circuit is going to be and then make sure the cables supplying the feed are of the correct size to carry that load.l it is so easy to hook something up under the dash and not consider that the main feed from the battery may already be close to capacity. It can all add up pretty quickly. I recently installed a wiring harness in car that had a 185 Amp main feed circuit breaker. It was a 22 circuit harness. Most of our cars have a 40 Amp main feed from the starter solenoid to the main ignition terminal and were never designed to carry the loads we place on the wiring. Changing from the old bulb headlights to a set of H4 lights will double the load on this circuit alone.
It probably makes sense to replace the wiring in your old ride with an uprated system.
Just my two cents worth.
Regards
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By GREENBIRD56 - 13 Years Ago
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In some instances not so critical - but the greatest voltage "potential" on the vehicle, exists between the rotor and stator of the charging unit. Depending on the resistance of the connection between the frame of the alternator/generator unit - and the battery ground - you may or may not be able to see (or use) the maximum available voltage. I think it is best to create an "earth" wire between the frame of the alternator and the engine block - the pivoting bracket and clampscrews aren't the most trustworthy grounding system either.
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By miker - 13 Years Ago
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I've rewired several older cars, and I like to run a "ground loop", say two (lug/terminal strips) locations under the dash, one under the hood, and one in the back if there's any heavy electrical there ( kids and thumper amps). # 6 or 8 or 10 wire, depending on loads. It stops the temptation to cheat. Heavy electronics like MSD, follow the instructions. And it may be old fashioned, but there's nothing wrong with taking the power off the battery with more than one fusible link. They're cheap and unobtrusive, and help isolate a major failure so you know where to look for the fault. Main panel feed, cooling fans, MSD, big headlight relays-don't use them inside, just under the hood and separated. They fail by melting at high temp, so you don't want them to take something else with them. Size them to the load, and downstream wire size. The last car I did had a fault to ground on the main feed, and if he hadn't been in the garage with the hood up, and had a battery shut off, he might have lost the whole car. Even scrubs don't deserve that.
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