Engine Compartment Ground issue

[rennch]

Hi,

I've got another related thread going on this, but it's a slightly different question. On my 72T, the car will be running soundly. If I jiggle the fuse/electrical panel on the left side of the engine compartment in the slightest, the car immediately shuts down, and will not fire unless I jiggle it back in just the right way. My question is, where is the ground for this panel? Or is it the ground for the CD box that might be bad?

Thanks,

mto

[Pat S]

emptyo,
I've had mine out (74) and there wasn't a "direct" ground to it.

It does have three bolts that screw the plate onto the side. I cleaned these and the plate when I reinstalled. Not sure if they are meant to be a ground but they do provide one.

Also, the wire that connects to the front prong on the CD Box is a ground, on my old wires it connected to the sheilding on the wires to the dist/coil. The other side of the sheilding connected to the alt housing. I rebuild those wires and just put an extra wire from the CD to the alt housing to keep the ground going, but I'm not sure if it was needed or not.

You might try just adding a ground from the CD box and base plate to the grounding block you have by them. I don't think it would hurt anything to have an extra ground there.

Pat

[rennch]

My CD box has two tabs for the ground...you're thinking I could just add an extra ground to one of the chassis ground bolts on the side of the engine compardment, and connect it to the spare tab?

[Pat S]

I would think so. The two prongs on the front of the CD are just grounding the outside of the box (same as the bolts that connect it to the base.

Here is a bad pic of mine.


Listed as ground I have a pair of wires that connect to the base plate, no idea where they go, but they must need a ground. I'd check those also if you have them. And the tabs on the front of the CD box. I actually have two wires here. One goes to the small silver cylinder (RF suppressor?) on the left of the photo, the other is the ground I mentioned earlier.

My guess is that the plate and outside of the CD box need a good ground and if you crated a strap to either from you grounding post you should be okay.

Pat

[rennch]

Ok, I'll give it a shot. Thanks pat!

So..no alignment party tomorrow?

[rennch]

Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllll stumped. today I pulled the fuse/electrical panel and the fuel resovoir, in order to access the grounding block behind it. I cleaned the grounding block (it looked pretty good anyway), made a new ground to go directly to the CD box, and cleaned the electrical panel rubber/steel grommets and the panel itself. Re-assembled...no change. Still cuts out as soon as I jiggle it. I'm perplexed.

[Pat S]

Hmmm,
I wonder if it is a broken wire somewhere? (other than ground since we have that covered...)
Is there a specific jiggled wire group that does it? 14 pin, 3 pin etc?

It's pretty simple to make a new 3-pin wire from the CD box if that is the one...