Am building my 72 Chevy from the ground up and as I live in South Texas close to the coast rust is a giant issue. Therefore EVERYTHING on the truck is getting the best coatings possible. My question is how do you keep grounds on this without opening the truck to opportunitistic rust? Is tapping my holes after epoxy primer and paint and putting dielectric grease into them going to be the best method? Any other suggestions?
How to achieve the best ground?
El Campo
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I built an '89 Mustang and Fox bodies are notorious for bad grounds. I solved the problem by taking all wires that grounded to sheetmetal and re-routing them to a dedicated busbar. Then, while I had the motor out, I welded studs to 3/8" plate and welded that to my inner frame rails. The batt neg cable grounds to the plate as does the busbar, 2 engine grounds and a couple of other things. The connections are slathered in dielectric grease. No more ground problems!
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Grounding
Remember! Battery is in the car for two primary reasons;
One is to ROTATE the ENGINE!
Two is to FIRE the SPARK PLUGS!
It's for this reason that the engine block (cylinder heads & Starter) MUST be the primary ground.
And remember that electricity in general, Sucks! It is not shot out of the positive wire (spark plug, etc.); it is sucked to the device by the return path.
Just food for thought!!
Bill
Remember! Battery is in the car for two primary reasons;
One is to ROTATE the ENGINE!
Two is to FIRE the SPARK PLUGS!
It's for this reason that the engine block (cylinder heads & Starter) MUST be the primary ground.
And remember that electricity in general, Sucks! It is not shot out of the positive wire (spark plug, etc.); it is sucked to the device by the return path.
Just food for thought!!
Bill
A common method in aircraft maintenance is to wet assemble the ground connections with a good paint. Dab some paint in the hole before inserting the screw. Also, dab more paint on each individual part, especially the contact surfaces, before assembling the rest of the parts. Then before final torquing, dab some more over the entire assembly. This allows the paint to fill every nook and cranny.
When torqued, the wet paint will be squeezed away from all the direct contact points but will leave a moisture-proof coating on everything else. After the screw is torqued, touch up any bare spots of paint that were removed by the tool. You can keep adding coats until you are satisfied with the paint's thickness.
If done properly, there will be no air pockets anywhere in the assembly. or any pathways for moisture to seep in.
When torqued, the wet paint will be squeezed away from all the direct contact points but will leave a moisture-proof coating on everything else. After the screw is torqued, touch up any bare spots of paint that were removed by the tool. You can keep adding coats until you are satisfied with the paint's thickness.
If done properly, there will be no air pockets anywhere in the assembly. or any pathways for moisture to seep in.
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3,112 Posts
Should worry about that level of detail in aircraft, after all at 10,00 feet ...not many second chances.
That said we are talking about automobiles and tail lights, radios and starting systems, everyone has their own way of doing it but overkill in some suggestions.
I suppose if you had enough money you could have the entire frame zinc plated with gold plated internal copper buss bars running the entire length of the frame....... but that might be over kill as well. Read with a sense of humor......
That said we are talking about automobiles and tail lights, radios and starting systems, everyone has their own way of doing it but overkill in some suggestions.
I suppose if you had enough money you could have the entire frame zinc plated with gold plated internal copper buss bars running the entire length of the frame....... but that might be over kill as well. Read with a sense of humor......
I used a short stainless steel bolt. Welded the HEAD to the frame for a positive connection, creating a stud. Used jam nuts on either side of the ground strap. Obviously, Stainless is not always corrosion proof, but the austinetics (like 316, etc) are very much corrosion resistant.
Pat
Pat
Grounding
In the past, prior to all the high tech stuff, that was good enough and if your happy with the results, great.
My deal was that in all the things we do; street rods, drag race and hot rods, the cost of driving to where ever we are going and what ever we're going to do, has just got so expensive, we can't take a chance in breaking down.
Once we discovered these two facts, our car building and assembly changed.
"ELECTRICITY GOES KNOW WHERE IT'S NOT INVITED"
AND
"NOTHING GOES IN, THAT CAN'T COME OUT"
Take a look at the main electrical panel in your home, it has EVERY ground wire, from EVERY circuit or device, returns to one single point. If you didn't do that, every time you turned on one device, another would dim!
Bill
In the past, prior to all the high tech stuff, that was good enough and if your happy with the results, great.
My deal was that in all the things we do; street rods, drag race and hot rods, the cost of driving to where ever we are going and what ever we're going to do, has just got so expensive, we can't take a chance in breaking down.
Once we discovered these two facts, our car building and assembly changed.
"ELECTRICITY GOES KNOW WHERE IT'S NOT INVITED"
AND
"NOTHING GOES IN, THAT CAN'T COME OUT"
Take a look at the main electrical panel in your home, it has EVERY ground wire, from EVERY circuit or device, returns to one single point. If you didn't do that, every time you turned on one device, another would dim!
Bill
A good ground
A house wiring setup has to be that way because it is made of wood, not steel, and one would not want a fire, so all grounds have to go directly back to the box where it came from... This uses a ton of extra wire, but needed in that case. With a good welded car chassis, this can be your closest way back, and save a lot of wire, the longer the wire, the larger it needs to be, when pushed by 12 volts, if it were 110, it can be smaller wire... Main thing is a very clean and tight connection to the frame, any thing that is not a solid, welded connection on the frame itself, a jumper ground wire would be a safe bet, because that none-welded connection, may not be the best, and can cause heat... Any wire or connection that gets hot, or even warm, is bad... :spank:
A house wiring setup has to be that way because it is made of wood, not steel, and one would not want a fire, so all grounds have to go directly back to the box where it came from... This uses a ton of extra wire, but needed in that case. With a good welded car chassis, this can be your closest way back, and save a lot of wire, the longer the wire, the larger it needs to be, when pushed by 12 volts, if it were 110, it can be smaller wire... Main thing is a very clean and tight connection to the frame, any thing that is not a solid, welded connection on the frame itself, a jumper ground wire would be a safe bet, because that none-welded connection, may not be the best, and can cause heat... Any wire or connection that gets hot, or even warm, is bad... :spank:
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102 Posts
Now that we're beating this grounding issue to death, go out and look at your wife's new car. The negative battery cable is either a two piece cable with a large wire going to the block/starter and a smaller one going to the inner fender or a large wire going to the inner fender and continuing to the block/starter. There are no bus bars or ground wires running all over the car working there way back to the battery, just a few common ground points scattered around and they're doing a great job keeping that car running just fine.
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