legacycentral bbs

Today i decided to take my grounding kit out because they're red monster wires and replace them with new blue wires because my intercooler couplers are blue, so i'm kind of trying to keep everything somewhat matching. Anyways when i took the bolt off my negative battery terminal one of the grounds retracted towards the positive terminal and arched. Normally this is no big deal, small arch, maybe blow a fuse or the fusible link. Not tonight.

Yes i know i should have disconnected the battery, but i figured, just replacing grounds, the wires are warm probably wont have the urge to move much at all since the insulation is warm... NOPE!

Anyways, now I'm stuck in a bit of a cluster fuck... It managed to fry my atmospheric pressure sensor, which sucks. When i turn my blinkers on, it cuts out my stereo so when it blinks the stereo goes off and when the blink stops the stereo comes back on, so it's on-off-on-off (My stereo.) My dash lights and everything else are pretty dim, headlights and all.

The last time i shorted out a Loom i had a serious issue inside the drivers fender. So that's the first place i checked, all is fine there, no melted wires. Moved forward towards the fuse block under the hood, skeptical as i was, i just replaced the fuse block under the hood since it was easy enough to do so and i have a known good one sitting on a shelf.

I haven't smelled burning wires at all tho. My roommate suggests trying to replace the fuse block under the dash which i may do, but i don't have one or the money to buy one at the moment.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

It sounds like there is a ground issue somewhere. I know you said the wires arched, but did you do anything afterwards? Did you replace the red wires or just leave them?

Unfortunately, you're probably going to have to do a little more troubleshooting to try and narrow down the problem. I would start by check voltage at the battery with the connectors disconnected from the car. Maybe the battery shorted out internally or has low voltage. If voltage is ok, hook up the connectors and check for voltage at each point there's a connection, like the fuse box, fuses, etc. If the voltage is good, then you need to check all the ground circuits. Disconnect the battery cables and check the resistance of the cable from the connector at the battery to where it connects to the chassis. Also check a few other spots on the motor and chassis to see what the resistance is. Do this for inside the cabin as well.

If all this checks out ok, then it could be the fuse box or a short somewhere. At this point, the best thing to do is pull the fuses one by one to see if you can narrow down the problem to a particular circuit.

I checked the battery and also checked resistance between the block and the neg cable. There's resistance between the neg cable and the chassis for sure tho. I'm exploring options at the moment

How much? There should really be none, the meter should read 0 ohms or very very close to it.

Well with the ohm meter at 20k I have 2.7k resistance between the neg battery terminal and the chassis. And when i put it to voltage i have 12.2v between the pos battery clamp and the Chassis 12.5 at the block

Did you take that resistance reading with the negative terminal disconnected? Did you try a lower setting on the ohm meter, or did it just go "OL" or something like that on the lower setting?

Either way, it sounds like the negative battery terminal wire is bad. You can try running a new lead from the negative terminal of the battery the chassis to see if that helps.

Did you check resistance from the negative terminal to the engine block? If so, what was its values?

From the negative to the block is zero, but the negative was connected to the battery when i checked. without it connected to the battery it's zero at the block and zero at the chassis.

I was just messing with the plugs under the dashboard (Black Blue and White plugs) with them all disconnected, i get 12.5v between the under dash fuse block and the chassis. With the white one connected only the voltage just fluctuates doesn't go steady. With either the blue or black connected the voltage drops to 12.4 I'm curious if there's something wrong with a ground that may be on that white plug.

As far as the battery cable being bad, i don't know if it is or not, i'll ground out the chassis with some amp wire and see if anything melts or what not.

And now i don't know what to think. the ground i just added helped out a lot. But with the car factory grounded it's tripping balls. so i guess i just have a bad ground somewhere.... no cutting out with the radio on and the turn signal going, pressure sensor isn't freaking out at all i wonder which ground is bad...

Hmmm...yeah it's a bad ground somewhere.

yeah, It should be fine tho right? atleast until i have more time to check them all i hope...

I think you'd be best to just replace the factory grounds. They're what fare worst when a battery is shorted.

maybe just replace about 6-8 inches of the wire too?

Yeah, it can't hurt.