Ground the engine

[madmanadam]

Hay all,

I just reinstalled my engine into the car, again. I'm now able to swap the engine in a 1 hours.

Went to start the car and it would not start, thought the battery was low so I swaped out batteries and tried again still no start, it turned over great, then I noticed smoke. Looked under car and noticed that my shifter cable was melted

 

It was a little costly this time, I forgot to put a ground strap from engine to frame and fried my shifter cable and my HEI mod.

My shifter cable melted to the body it was being used as the ground OOPs.

 

This will not happen again, learn from ones mistakes. Now I have to buy another shifter cable, I had an extra mod, lucky me.

Just thought I would share my mistake just so nobody does this.

Check everything over before starting.

 

Update on the car: Wiring done, gas line done, brake line almost done, interior done, painting almost done, touch up.

Soon go zoom.

Had to share

All take care

Adam

[Guest kc6wfs]

Bummer,

Ya on every car I have ever built I put the NEG cable of the battery to the motor/trans.

 

I heard onetime of this guy that did that and was running solid tubbing to his carb, ground went to the gas tank and melted his tubing and started a fire.

 

Should be a easy fix for you I hope.

 

Dave

[SpeedRacer]

Remember that you may ground the battery to the engine but that doesn't ground the rest of the car. You have to ground the body to the engine as well. The engine is usually mounted via rubber so the current has to find a different path, (fuel line, shift cable, speedo cable, etc).

 

BTW, GM had that problem one time and the engine was grounding through the driveshaft. This caused a magnetic buildup (i.e. electromagnetic) around the transmission rear housing bearing, which in turn attracted metal particles that then ground everything up.

[pparaska]

Excellent point. The way I like to see the grounds run is a large cable from the battery to the engine block, or even on a starter mounting bolt. Then a good sized ground strap from the engine block (near the negative battery cable connection on the block and/or starter) to the frame or sheetmetal. The starter needs far more current than the rest of the car (except for maybe a competition stereo ). That's why the ground cable from the batter should go to the engine.

 

Actually, on the Z, I ran dedicated ground wires (as large a gage as the wire on the Positive side of each circuit) to various know bad ground paths. Such as the front and rear light circuits.

[Guest Anonymous]

Whoa... Thats a bummer, never even thought about it running through the tranny cable as a ground. Lotta juice during cranking thats fur sure. I had a long bolt in my JTR setback plate on that side, I just hooked the negative on to that and put a nut on it , I should run one to the ground lug from the engine to the ground lug on the fenderwell, havn't done it yet though.

Project sounds nearly complete, thats awesome.

 

Regards,

 

Lone

[pparaska]

I had a bud in high school who went through 3 shifter cables in his Grand Prix (73) before the parts guy told him to check the engine/body ground strap - turns out he'd left it out when he rebuilt the engine. Live and learn!

[BLKMGK]

Ya' know - I've been seeing people talk about grounds being important and haven't paid too much attention. I keep putting it off etc. thinking it wasn't THAT big a deal... Ouch, yeah it is! Never thought about what might happen with a fuel line being the only ground either - WOW that's scary!

 

Thank you for the reminder, I'll try not to duplicate your mistake!