Best place for ground under dash?

[rmchrgr]

I'm looking for a place to ground some things under the dash - MSD, aftermarket gauges and so on.

I'm thinking the steering column bracket.

Or, since I deleted the heater and blower motor, I could use the bolts that secure the block off plate and hook up some wires with ring terminals behind the plate on the inside of the firewall. There's really no paint behind the panel there either so that would be good, no?

Back lip of the dash maybe?

Just looking for some clever ideas.

Thanks!

 

[Magnumforce1987]

The whole car is grounded, anywhere in the dash frame is fine.

 

[68383GTS]

X2

 

[rmchrgr]

The whole car is grounded, anywhere in the dash frame is fine.

Looking for something a little more beefy maybe? I guess I could use the dash frame for the gauges but for the MSD I think I might use the column bracket.

Anyone else?

 

[younggun2.0]

i recently re-wired my entire car. i got a power and ground junction box. you can see them in the picture. they allow you to attach multiple wires and then get a good power/ground source. my ground block was run to a very good chassis ground with 6 a wire.

 

[Snake]

i recently re-wired my entire car. i got a power and ground junction box. you can see them in the picture. they allow you to attach multiple wires and then get a good power/ground source. my ground block was run to a very good chassis ground with 6 a wire.

nice and neat :glasses7:

 

[rmchrgr]

i recently re-wired my entire car. i got a power and ground junction box. you can see them in the picture. they allow you to attach multiple wires and then get a good power/ground source. my ground block was run to a very good chassis ground with 6 a wire.

I have a junction block on the other side of the firewall for the B+ stuff, just need a ground place to tie in multiple things.

 

[younggun2.0]

I have a junction block on the other side of the firewall for the B+ stuff, just need a ground place to tie in multiple things.

the same junctions can be used for ground.

this is the ground post i made for the chassis ground. my battery and other chassis grounds terminate here.

 

[67Dart273]

The whole car is grounded, anywhere in the dash frame is fine.

What you mean is "The main body shell" ..............."should be grounded."

No separate piece is guaranteed to be ground, and it's not guaranteed that

battery negative

the engine block

the body shell

are all grounded to each other unless you have MADE it so.

 

[younggun2.0]

What you mean is "The main body shell" ..............."should be grounded."

No separate piece is guaranteed to be ground, and it's not guaranteed that

battery negative

the engine block

the body shell

are all grounded to each other unless you have MADE it so.

this guy knows his ****! helped me out a ton on my wiring project.

 

[KitCarlson]

Younggun,
That is well grounded! If you want a bit better, replace the spacer with copper, and use a copper alloy bolt. If the spacer is stainless steel, it can have 5 times the resistance of steel.

 

[Magnumforce1987]

What you mean is "The main body shell" ..............."should be grounded."

No separate piece is guaranteed to be ground, and it's not guaranteed that

battery negative

the engine block

the body shell

are all grounded to each other unless you have MADE it so.

No, I meant the battery (-) grounds the glass, tires, carpet, and vinyl. LOL.

 

[rmchrgr]

Well, I used the lip on the back of the dash for the gauges and it works fine.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Serj22]

Well, I used the lip on the back of the dash for the gauges and it works fine.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I used that lip for my gauges and an amplifier, and it intermittently cut out, and when the blinker clicked, the gauges all moved with it. Tick tock, tick tock, sort of thing. I moved my ground to a seperate bolt behind where the steering column goes through the firewall, and then ran a wire from the firewall side in engine bay, to the engine block, then from there to the battery. No more ticking. lol

 

[RedFish]

You asked for "the best place" which leads to opinions and other BS.
If the added weight/cost of wire doesn't matter, all the way to the battery is "the best place"
The factory grounded the heater case with a screw behind the right kick panel. To copy that on the left is a very good place. Not that anywhere in the dash wouldn't work. It is attached to weld up chassis with 7 bolts, U nuts over paint at 5 of those.

 

[rmchrgr]

You asked for "the best place" which leads to opinions and other BS.
If the added weight/cost of wire doesn't matter, all the way to the battery is "the best place"
The factory grounded the heater case with a screw behind the right kick panel. To copy that on the left is a very good place. Not that anywhere in the dash wouldn't work. It is attached to weld up chassis with 7 bolts, U nuts over paint at 5 of those.

Battery is in the trunk so it needs to be near the dash area for ease of install.

I looked at the kick panel areas, didn't see much there but I will look at it again.

There really is no factory ground spot which seems odd. There are so many in modern cars.

 

[67Dart273]

Originally, the front mount battery had the main ground to the engine block, but THAT is not well grounded to the body. Early cars had minimal battery or engine to body grounds. That was usually a pigtail off the battery clamp to the body

If you are using a trunk mount battery, are you running the neg cable to the body / frame rail in the trunk, or clear up to the engine?

If you are grounding the battery in the trunk, then you need a Great Big cable from the engine /trans to the body. If you run the battery neg up to the block, you need a not so big cable from the engine to the body

One good way do do this is to look at the alternator bracket bolts in the left front head. Those same holes are in the rear of the head on the driver side.

Depending on what you have for a master cylinder, you can buy a 1 foot starter cable (ring to ring) and bolt on the rear of the head, and to the master cyl. studs. If the neg. is already run to the block/ trans, you can use a no 4 cable. If the neg is grounded only in the trunk, use a no1 cable.

Just use your noggin a little

Used to be common to see the '60's Chevies with part of the tail lamps in the trunk lid doing crazy things---because the lamp sockets needed to be grounded.

"Back when" I had the 70 sixpack car, I forgot to hook up the engine to body ground (trunk mount battery.) and tried to start the car. "It" was trying to ground through the clutch linkage, and blew up one of the retainer clips on the linkage. I knew better, even back then, here was a clip that looked like it had been struck by lightning.

We were all ETs (RADAR techs) so I took a lot of flak on that one.

 

[KitCarlson]

With EFI, the engine is a better ground reference than engine than the battery. Why? Because when cranking, the large current and associated voltage offsets the engine sensor that are ground referenced. Sensors like temperature, and O2. So the measurements are immune to the cable drop. It also protects against the ECU and associated wiring for loss of engine ground. Other wise the ECU wiring fails to deliver the starting load, it is not rated for.

 

[12valve]

I am an electrician by trade and for all of our high vibration connections and any bolted switchgear connection we use a product from Thomas and Betts called Kopr-Shield. It's very similar to Never Sieze but with powdered copper suspended in a grease. It does several things but the main thing it does is it helps reduce the resistance in any electrical connection. Where this is helpful is if your bolted connection starts to work loose over time, the Kopr Shield "bridges" the gap and maintains the connection. Ideally the bolt will not loosen but in the real world, given time, vibration, and heating/cooling cycles they will loosen. One word of warning if you are going to use it, I find it best to open the bottle and wipe a little bit on everything in site first thing, because it's going to get there anyway and at least that way you know how it got there .