*THE BUICK GODS HAVE HELPED ME FIX IT*No lights of any kind. I think my car may burn down too.

Well I guess go obnoxiously big or go home.

 

I am now looking closer at my overall ground situation. I do not have anything coming off the negative battery terminal other than the negative cable itself (original one btw) and it just goes directly to the lower alternator bracket. According to this diagram, there should be a smaller ground wire too (?). What the heck.

 

Yes there should be a 10 or 12? gauge wire from the negative terminal to a screw located down by the radiator core support.

 

I knew I had seen something about that before. Thank you for confirming. I have no idea where that wire would come from, because I just have OEM cable that has absolutely nothing else on it.

 

Just have a regular old Skylark, but sure enough there's nothing there. But I wish it was a GS . I am sure I could find the answer to my next question by scouring through the 485000 messages on this board, but are there other major grounds that I should be looking at besides the one that I just replaced on the firewall?

 

What I do. (color codes to you can see how all are tied together)

Block to frame
Block to body
Block to battery
Battery to frame
Battery to body
Body to frame

Make sure bumpers have clean contact of bolts and brackets to the frame, important for lights.

Dash to cluster, headlight switch (especially due to heavy current load), horns to radiator support.

There is no such thing as too many or too "good" a ground.

Also having a proper gauge cable for the ground from the battery to the block, and same for the positive cable from the battery to the starter lug.

If you have poor grounding and bonding, you can have all sorts of problems, from rough running engine, misfires, stalling, lights doing odd things, coming on when they should not, and working "out of sequence".

That's a good starting place.

 

You could always make an additional ground wire running from the other end of the negative cable mounting point, to the radiator support or right fender (under the hood). Just make it long enough that you can hide it well.

 

Thank you! I think I have some more grounding straps to order

 

That is an absolutely fantastic idea.

 

I have seen console shifter cables get stiff and even melt because, after an engine swap, they became the only ground from the engine to the body when the main ground straps were forgotten.
Patrick

 

on my '72 GS, I have the ground from the battery cable to the front fender, then a ground from the engine to the frame & from the firewall to the engine.

 

This sounds like something I would do. Not the engine swap part, but the forgetting to put the ground straps on part.

 

After I repair the broken end on this, it will be repurposed as another ground . There's no way I'm going to throw this beauty out.

 

Shiny again.

 

Back in the 70's, I don't recall which years, GM was having problems with the TH350 transmissions bushings. It was determined to be lack of or faulty body grounds.

 

Just attach a heavy ground wire from the tailhousing bolts on the trans. to a good ground on the frame. Clean, shiny & tight is the game. It will more than be sufficient & can't be seen.

Tom T.

 

I have never had a direct battery to ground on my car. But I imagine that perfectly placed hole in the fender was there for some reason. I sanded the paint off around the hole and put this wire on tonight. It ain't pretty, but I figure it will work fine.

 

My daughter and I went for a cruise tonight after dark. She was amazed to see that the Buick has headlights