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Anybody here have experience in automotive electrical issues?

Well, just ran a ground direct from the battery to the metal frame of the dash. no luck. Guess I need to find where the harness goes to ground under the dash somewhere, but that's going to take a while...
 
Most likely the existing ground is a wire from the frame to the firewall somewhere.

A small wire will probably work for your needs for now, but you'll want a pretty good sized wire or go by the parts store and get a cable, probably around 10 gauge or bigger. The dash instruments don't take too many amps, but once you add in the heater, wipers, radio...you'll be drawing some amps. Need to have a decent sized ground to keep from having an electrical fire.

Take some sandpaper and clear the paint to bare metal where you connect the new ground wire on the firewall. Either connect to the frame or to the battery, battery would be good, but if the connector from the battery to the frame is cleaned up, to the frame would be just as good

Mostly I'm concerned you run a big enough new ground...
 
My motto has usually been "bigger is better". Done a bunch of work on boats and stuff in the past, and generally go one size larger than required.

Just want to get this puppy smogged, and then I figure I'll do a good cleanup and resto on parts of it when I get a little more time.

And after that, the desert camo paint job... :D
 
Brent Dowell said:
Well, followed the negative lead off the battery to where it had a bolt to the chassis. Pulled it, cleaned it, reconnected, etc...

I hook up the voltmeter to the positive pole on the batter and went around checking the chassis. Got good volt readings every where in the engine compartment and under the dash.

Am I not checking things in the right way?

If I were to run a separate ground, where should I connect it? The fuse block has only positive polarity on everything right?
Very confusing.

Took it for a test drive and other than sweating like crazy, the truck runs smooth. I have to take it in for a smog check tomorrow, so I think it should make it the 25 miles to town and back.

After that I'm willing to take apart the whole dash if I have to in order to get this fixed...
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So there's nothing to connect to there, just need to find where the wiring harness goes to ground in the passenger compartment.


If you are dealing with a voltage going to ground in the wrong place then a new wire harness may be needed-----do it blow the fuses ?
 
No blown fuses, just weak voltage in the dash.

The voltage at the fuse block reads the same as at the battery.
 
the 14 volts will fry your dashboard plus a number of other devices [horn / ] are you testing the voltage on both sides of every thing,---the voltage to a device will be higher than the voltage between the device and ground
 
Took it in for the smog check on Friday. I was 1.2 % too high on CO to pass :doh:

Had to spend a few hours doing 'work/work'.

Then I had to take another load of trash to the dump. Just going into town usually wastes a half a day. Started loading the truck at 8:00am and didn't get back till around 1:00.

Spent an hour and a half in the pool. (Gotta have some fun on the weekend ! :D)

Just got done straightening up the up the garage, and now I'm getting ready for the race.

I'll see if I have the energy to work on it tomorrow. It's very frustrating.

Thinking about taking part of the dash off to be able to actually look for the main ground.

Eh, Tomorrows another day.
 
Brent Dowell said:
Took it in for the smog check on Friday. I was 1.2 % too high on CO to pass :doh:

.
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Well not to hijack the thread but I am in the middle of failing emissions myself. Here they just plug a computer into your OBD2 port and the computer calls home. Usually if you have no MIL light then you pass pay your 30-540 bucks and can get a safety inspection.

Well I got a call they couldn't proceed. There are tests the Engine Computer Module runs that set the fail and light the MIL. However they get reset with a battery disconnect or using a scan tool to reset a failure. I had no MIL and hadn't had a scan tool hooked up in over a year but I had 4 of the monitors incomplete and on a 1996-2000 you can only have 2 incompletes. So it fails emissions and i have only got 1 of the three monitors to set in over 200 miles of driving. I had replace the headlight about 5 weeks ago and I guess that is what reset the monitors but why they won't run is beyond me... The conditions that cause then to run seems to be proprietary and only very limited info is available. So we are driving illegal when we drive and the real kicker is if we lived a 2 counties west it wouldn't even be an issue.:(
 
Brent Dowell said:
Thinking about taking part of the dash off to be able to actually look for the main ground.
Click to expand...

Most likely it's a cable from the frame to the firewall under the hood somewhere. All the metal under the dash is the ground and most likely has a bare spot (no paint) on the inside of the firewall where it's attached. If you believe it to be a bad ground under the dash, then you might just find a good spot to put a heavy ground wire to part of the dash's metal and clear some paint off the firewall (inside) to bolt it to. Should be plenty of places that are already exposed without having to tear it apart.
 
Well, I gave up. Will take it to a garage on Monday and let them deal with it.

I ran an extra ground from the batter to the firewall, no difference.

I'm pretty sure there's a good ground everywhere.

Checked the fusible links, checked the positive wire on the battery.

I figure I'll let the pro's handle this from here on out. I'm out of my depth on it.
 
Did you try testing a direct connection to the battery and touching the ground of the dash to see if possibly the positive was bad coming to the dash?

Typically the positive goes to a power block under the hood then another cable feeds the fuse box under/in the dash. It's possible that one of those connections are needing cleaned or you've got a bad cable.
 
Brent Dowell said:
Well, I gave up. Will take it to a garage on Monday and let them deal with it.

I ran an extra ground from the batter to the firewall, no difference.

I'm pretty sure there's a good ground everywhere.

Checked the fusible links, checked the positive wire on the battery.

I figure I'll let the pro's handle this from here on out. I'm out of my depth on it.
Click to expand...

Brent if you ran it to the engine compartments side of the firewall it did no good. Like darren said you need to go to the dash ground. I ran mine through the firewall ans used the ground for the cigarette lighters as my connection point. All the way from the battery to the lighter.
 
Yup, Nice heavy wire through the firewall into the passenger compartment. Hooked it right to one of the chassis metal parts where the fuse block connects to. :huh:

Tried several different areas to see if it made any difference. It didn't. :huh:

And it's not like the ground was missing. Got good readings everywhere with the voltmeter.
 
Darren Wright said:
Did you try testing a direct connection to the battery and touching the ground of the dash to see if possibly the positive was bad coming to the dash?

Typically the positive goes to a power block under the hood then another cable feeds the fuse box under/in the dash. It's possible that one of those connections are needing cleaned or you've got a bad cable.
Click to expand...

Pulled apart a lot of connections and made sure they were clean and that I got good readings with the voltmeter. Ran a seperate ground through the firewall. No difference.
 
It was originally my vehicle. Been through rivers and terrain that would scare me now. Just proves young 'uns have no sense. I keep offering to just pay someone to fix it, maybe Brent's finally listening to reason.

I just can't wait till we can paint it Russian camo. :headbang::headbang:
 
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