[s-cars] Alternator Musings

[Paul Gailus]

Brian,

Your efforts to clean up ground connections and check out
voltage drops sound very worthwhile.

However, I would be careful about adding other ground wires.
At first it might seem that this could only help. But consider the
following example:
Say that you strap on another ground wire of 14 or 12 gage to
tie the engine back to the battery and body. Now suppose that the
existing heavy duty ground connection to the engine gets corroded
or loose and you turn over the starter. Guess what happens?
If you're lucky just smoke and melted wires. But fires have
been know to start this way.


----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Alternator Musings


Dave,

I went out, removed the battery cleaned the contacts and ground strap
on both ends (everything was spotless already).

I then hooked my voltmeter between the engine and the battery ground
and had a voltage drop of 67 mV when everything was running. It should
be less than 50 mV. So, I removed the engine ground wire, cleaned the
contacts and wire thoroughly and reconnected. Now, from where the
engine ground wire connects to the body to the battery, there is about
3 mV drop; however, from points around the engine (such as where the
coils are grounded to the head), there is still a 60mV voltage drop.

It seems like the engine itself isn't grounded very well; however, the
ground line for the engine is operating well and its ground point is
perfect.

I'm not sure what else to do other than add another ground wire to the
engine somewhere.
>
> Yeah... you've got resistance in there that will cause you problems.  You
> can verify this by measuring the resistance (ohm meter... you prolly
know),
> but the easiest thing to do is just clean things up and measure voltage
> again.  I think you'll find that this will solve your problems.
> Good luck!
> Dave

--
Cheers,
Brian
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