Evening all,
I'm about to start rewiring and installing new kit in the back of my 110. Once I've done my calculations - the live feeds are simple enough. Can I ask - would you earth the neutral to the car body, close to each light or socket (ie lots of individual earth points), or would you run every neutral wire back to one earth block bolted to a section of steel - so that everything is in one place, accessible and where you know you have a good solid earth connection?
1st time I've had to do car electrics so new to me. How would you do it? Recommendations please.
Mick '86'.
It sounds like you are doing both. Using existing earth points and taking a lead back to the battery neg. I'd thought of just running everything back to one earth block. I can see the sense in doubling up. If one fails you still have a good earth somewhere else.
You are using earth points at the bulkhead and rear lights. If you use these aren't you still running earth through the body or are these isolated in some way and just going back to the neg?
Excuse my ignorance - is there a downside to earthing to the body - it seems to be what a lot of people do and is mentioned in one of the 'rewiring tutorials' on the site. Just trying to get my head round the best way to do this.
Cheers
I am “doubling up” so to speak, but the original earths are something like 1.5-2.5mm, and the new ones will be 16mm. Electricity takes the path of least resistance, so the originals will be almost unused.
When you see “electrolytic corrosion” on these vehicles, it’s usually caused because of the presence of road salt and water, and electricity passing through the joint. If you reduce the electricity passing through the joint, it has to reduce the corrosion. How much it will reduce it is up for debate though.
All of my current earths will be wired direct to the new 16mm earths, and not through the body. Yes the body will be earthed by virtue of the 16mm connections, but the body shouldn’t ever have power passing through it.
Excuse my ignorance on leccy but is that not just the same?
Well, if all your earth's go to one point how do you join them all up and where do you attach it? I know the battery but are you leading straight into battery? What if you get multiple earth issues at once? (can that even happen? )
Not criticising, just interested.
I quite like Oldseadogs idea of a chassis earth at the rear. How about this plus running an earth to the original front chassis bolt on point for the negative cable from the battery? This way there are strong earth points at each end of the chassis. The circuit is made through the chassis earthing and there is no current passing through the body to stimulate electrolytic corrosion. Is there any need for earthing the body at all given this set up?
Just trying to find my way here (a little knowledge is dodgy & I don't want to get this wrong).
IMHO, do not rely on the body to earth anything. As others have suggested, I'd run a heavy earth from the battery or chassis earth point to the rear - to where the rear loom is joined to the individual lighting circuits. - inside the cover in the rear drivers side on most UK vehicles.
Gotcha. Thanks for all the advice guys. Think I'm up to speed on the earthing side of things. No doubt I'll be scratching my head on other stuff but one thing at a time.
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