Painted over ground plate G104 , is that the way the factory left it?

[eflight]

I have a few electrical gremlins I am trying to chase down so I've been cleaning all the ground points on the car. Car is a 1984 Targa, originally white but painted blue by previous owner.

I took the wires of ground location G104 in the luggage compartment inner fender just aft of the fuse box to clean the connections up.

I noticed that the ground plate is painted over. The paint looks like the original white paint on the car, but it seems strange to me that a ground point would have been left painted at the factory.

Has anyone else seen this?
Should I sand off the white paint on the ground plate ?

[Magyar Kiwi]

Hi
Recommend that you remove the paint from the threads and the center of the grounding plate, where the terminal ends sit.
Cheers

[EC900]

Looks factory paint-over based on those coatings being slopped over.
Any ground was probably limited to the threaded inner portion of the welded in speed nut, grounding the bolt washer and terminal eyelets.
I’d carefully clean the inside threads with cotton swab of acetone, also clean off the bolt threads and terminal flat surfaces.
If your want, remove some paint of the flat of that speed nut too. It might be yellow zinc plated and rather than scratch it up and allow any rust, paint removal might be a better the first step.
Light buffing with #0000 rather than aggressive sand paper, touch up any bare metal.

[Correyyt]

If it were mine, I’d sand or scrape the paint off the contact surface of the plate and the ring terminals so you’ve got bare metal contact, then give it a light coat of dielectric grease to keep corrosion away. That way you know the ground is solid and you can rule it out as a gremlin source.

[unclebilly]

Run a tap through that thread - if you want you could even put some copper coat anti sieze on the threads. The threads will have way more contact area that that flat portion. This way you don’t risk rust.

[eflight]

Thanks all.

I ran the tap through it and that looks like it cleaned the paint out pretty well. I added a dab of copper anti-seize on the bolt, clean off the bolt all the wire contacts with a scotch bright pad and re-installed.

have to tackle the larger grounds straps next.

[famoroso]

That painted over ground point makes me sad. I'm gonna lose sleep over it.

Get that plate sanded stat!
Run a tap thru the threads for good measure.
Clean any corrosion offa the ring terminals.
Spray the whole shebang off with Deoxit5.
Reassemble.

Add milk and juice to make it part of a complete breakfast (no, wait, that's something different... I watched A LOT of Saturday morning cartoons during the '70s).

[GH85Carrera]

That ground point is next the to shock tower. If you ever drive in rain, or through a puddle, the water can get in the trunk. That is part of the reason for the black thick goo Porsche applied when the car was made.

Just humidity will cause that bare metal to oxidize (rust) so I would suggest a light coat of clear coat from a rattle can over the connection once everything is clean, and tightened down.

It is physically impossible to have too good of a ground. More is always better.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Grounds are highly overrated.

–Lucas Electrics

[famoroso]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Grounds are highly overrated.

–Lucas Electrics

LOL!

My name is Joseph Lucas and I approve this message.

[eflight]

OK, you guys convinced me. I scraped the paint off the plate. All good now.

Also got a new battery ground cable, so attacking that point was next.

Which required removing the battery and I saw that the battery hold down plate was rusted and chipped, so that got wire wheeled, cleaned off and painted.

Its like it never ends.

Next up is the transmission ground.