[DeTomaso] Electrical Grounds, Volts of Confidence Modification, and Pantera Electricals

Wed May 30 17:34:20 EDT 2007

Yes,the electrical grounds, are an often overlooked but very important part
of the cars electrical system.Just think of it as the power running from the
plus on the battery,through the power consumers and back through wires and
the cars steel body to the batterys minus.Every resistance in this
circle,either on plus or minus side,strangles the efficience of the
cirquit.And in a worst case senario,there are many examples of heavy damage
,when an actuated starter could not find proper ground,and thereby seeking
ground through all the small wires elsewhere,throttle cables and that
like,melting down their isolation,causing disaster 8[ .As you point out,a
multimeter with resistance (ohm)reading is a good way to measure the
connections on the minus side.A good clean connection should read near 0
Ohms,but due to some normal resistance in wires could be a little more,but
not more than 1 ohm at the most.Just remember to put the two testprobes of
the multimeter together and see if it read 0 ohm before starting to use
it.If it shows any value over 0 ohm from sticking the probes together,you
have to subtract that from your measures done on the car,so you dont get
false readings :)

Cheers!

Øyvind Bakken 

-----Opprinnelig melding-----
Fra: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] På
vegne av Chris Difani
Sendt: 30. mai 2007 06:45
Til: detomaso at realbig.com
Emne: [DeTomaso] Electrical Grounds, Volts of Confidence Modification,and
Pantera Electricals

Guys:

As some of you know, I'm in the process of rebuilding/restoring/going
berserk/etc my '73L. Among the various changes I've made, one was
implementing Mike Drew's "Volts of Confidence" "fix" for our "all the
amperage thru the ignition switch" wiring system. 

Now that takes care of the "plus" side of things. And I got to thinking
about the "minus" side of things. I spoke with Fred Terry and I learned that
the front half of the car is all grounded thru one very small stud under the
dash. Essentially every electric appliance has a ground wire that runs back
to that stud. And the ground wires aren't very big, and neither is that
stud. Fred was very emphatic that if I did the "Volts of Confidence"
modification, and then didn't add the individual grounds, I wouldn't be
getting all the benefits that I should get from all my work. Fred had the
tech logic and details for this, and was able to explain it to me in
depth..(very smart guy).

Okay, back to the Pantera. In the back half of the vehicle, every appliance
is grounded right there, to the body, at the appliance. None of this
"everything to one grounding bolt" concept. Why the front half is one way,
and the back half another, I have no idea... 

Okay, so now you ask why am I concerned about this?

Glad you asked... I decided that what's good enough for the rear, is good
enough for the front. Or at least I'd look into it with my trusty $17.99
on-sale-at-Harbor Freight digital multimeter... . 

Since the radiator fans are a huge user of electricity, and a major element
of our cars, I figured I'd check the ground question out by using them. I
went to my radiator fans and using my digital multimeter, I measured the
resistance from the negative side of the fan, to the body sheetmetal. This
measurement is actually running from the grounding wire that runs from the
radiator fan, thru the harness, and up under the dash, to that single stud,
and then back to my meter's probe, which was "stuck" into the body
sheetmetal. 

This ohm reading was 8 ohms. That's 8.0 ohms. 8 point zero ohms.

Then I spliced a 12 gauge wire into the black, ground wire, right at the
fan's plug, and using a ring terminal, attached my new ground wire to the
body sheetmetal, right there. I drilled a small hole, ran a carbon steel
sheetmetal screw thru the ring terminal, and into the new drilled hole.
Actually before I ran the screw in, I sanded the paint away from around the
hole such that the ring terminal made solid contact with the bare metal. 

Now I've got a ground wire that's right there! Right at the fan motor (well,
almost- within 18 inches). I measured my resistance again from the negative
side of the fan motor plug, to the sheetmetal body. This time I had 0.8
ohms. That's zero point 8 ohms.

A decrease in resistance by an order of magnitude. This is very good. 

With that kind of result, I then did the same thing to my other fan, and to
every other major appliance in the front half of my car. It's simple to do,
and makes a huge difference in the electrical efficiency of the system. In
fact, I'd say that anyone that does the "Volts of Confidence" modification,
and then doesn't do this, isn't getting all that they should from their
effort and money.

And that's my story... and I'm sticking to it...

Chris

Chris Difani
'73 L #5829 "LITNNG"
Sacramento, CA
Email: cdifani at pacbell.net 

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