[DeTomaso] pantera electricals

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

With all the talk about the inadvisability of relying only on the 'under-dash 
ground stud', remember that stud is not just welded to the underside of the 
cowl: it penetrates the sheet metal and becomes the ground lug for the battery 
(at least in its stock position)! Theoretically, this should be ideal given 
that the dash and console where all the gauges and switches live are insulating 
fiberglas. I suspect that most problems with under-dash grounds are in fact 
simple corrosion or looseness of the nut on the stack of grounding wires, which 
we used to tediously fix by removing everything from the under-dash stud, 
wire-brushing every connecting loop bright 'n shiny, and re-attaching the wires 
with a firmly-torqued nut and washer. In hot, dry areas, you might do this once 
in a Pantera-lifetime; in wet humid areas, quite a bit more often.
A second problem with loose ground connections is the inadvertent creation of 
ground-loops that don't route electrons directly back to the battery, but 
send them on long circuitous paths from 'less-grounded' to 'more-grounded-but-not 
quite-battery-grounded'. Try this: while looking at your gauges on a 
warmed-up engine at idle, turn on the headlights (momentary heavy current draw). You 
may find your temp gauge reading drops, oil pressure reading changes and even 
the fuel gauge reading drops! This is a sure sign of ground-loops somewhere in 
the gauge panel wiring, and the need to scrub corrosion off the under-dash 
ground post and both ends of the battery ground cable, at least as a start. 
FWIW- J DeRyke (who hates wiring problems!)

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