Vehicle Grounds

FL335i · January 21, 2018

Yesterday I decided to go through the electrical system on my truck being it's almost 4yrs old and has 75k on it. I cleaned up the battery terminals, took the positive battery distribution system apart, even took the hot wire off the alternator. Everything was cleaned, sanded with 320 sand paper, cleaned with electrical parts cleaner and put back together with dielectric grease. I'm glad I did this job because the stainless steel connections were starting to gall and it was extremely hard to remove the nuts. I was scared of snapping the stud off the alternator I used a pry bar to hold the wire lug in place while loosening the nut. I then followed the smaller ground wire from the battery to the passenger side chassis ground. Took it apart, clenaed the frame, wire bolt everything up. glad I did. the frame coating was in the way and hte wire connection was corroded pretty good. Again, everything was sanded, and cleaned with electrical parts cleaner and put back together with dielectric grease. Then wiped clean and sprayed with battery terminal protector spray. There is another ground wire on the driver side, behind the front wheel. Did the same thing to it. It also needed it.

I checked the entire frame for more connections and could not see any. Now my High SWR readings from my CB antenna mounted in the middle of the roof make sense! There is literally no ground wires from the frame to the body anywhere except under the hood. By the brake booster there is a ground strap going from the fire wall to the block. I am going to add some ground wires, connecting the body to the frame. I'm thinking adding grounds from the frame to both the bed and box, right behind the cab, on both passenger and driver side. And adding a wire from the engine block to the firewall/fenders.

Donstar · January 21, 2018

You take incredible care of your truck! I understand your rationale for adding grounds but I approach this a little differently. Your bed and cab are grounded to the frame through every nut and bolt but some parts seem to make lousy grounds. Whenever I've added an electrical component to an aging vehicle I simply run a desperate ground wire.

Edited January 21, 2018 by Donstar

tbarn · January 21, 2018

Desperate?

FL335i · January 22, 2018

Update. Today I found a frame ground on the driver side, behind the cab. It's a ground wire on a bed gusset. Wire runs from the frame up to the gas filler neck area. I took that one apart at the frame and cleaned the heck out of it also; removed the frame coating and sanded it up nicely. I made a 10ga wire that goes from that frame bolt to a bed mounting bolt about 6-8" away. Under the hood I made a 10ga wire up to go from the front of the driver side valve cover area to the LF fender by the fuse box. I plan on making one more and running it from the battery neg terminal to the RF fender. Calling it good.

FL335i · January 23, 2018

Tell you one thing, so far since I've done my ground and wiring connection cleaning, my horn honking while locking is back to working!!! For the past 2yrs when double pressing the lock button to make the horn honk, it would 90% of the time not honk. Or you had to press the button a million times for it to finally honk. I think the grounds were affecting the horn on short honks like when locking. I have yet to have it not honk while locking since the ground cleaning.

Ravenkeeper · January 24, 2018

On 1/21/2018 at 6:14 AM, FL335i said:

Yesterday I decided to go through the electrical system on my truck being it's almost 4yrs old and has 75k on it. I cleaned up the battery terminals, took the positive battery distribution system apart, even took the hot wire off the alternator. Everything was cleaned, sanded with 320 sand paper, cleaned with electrical parts cleaner and put back together with dielectric grease. I'm glad I did this job because the stainless steel connections were starting to gall and it was extremely hard to remove the nuts. I was scared of snapping the stud off the alternator I used a pry bar to hold the wire lug in place while loosening the nut. I then followed the smaller ground wire from the battery to the passenger side chassis ground. Took it apart, clenaed the frame, wire bolt everything up. glad I did. the frame coating was in the way and hte wire connection was corroded pretty good. Again, everything was sanded, and cleaned with electrical parts cleaner and put back together with dielectric grease. Then wiped clean and sprayed with battery terminal protector spray. There is another ground wire on the driver side, behind the front wheel. Did the same thing to it. It also needed it.

I checked the entire frame for more connections and could not see any. Now my High SWR readings from my CB antenna mounted in the middle of the roof make sense! There is literally no ground wires from the frame to the body anywhere except under the hood. By the brake booster there is a ground strap going from the fire wall to the block. I am going to add some ground wires, connecting the body to the frame. I'm thinking adding grounds from the frame to both the bed and box, right behind the cab, on both passenger and driver side. And adding a wire from the engine block to the firewall/fenders.

My CB antenna is mounted on the right side bedrail, and has a high (2+) SWR. I'm thinking it's because of the mount isn't ground to the vehicle very well, doesn't have a good ground plane, and I'm looking at going dual antenna to hopefully lower my SWR, even more than grounding my mount. I'm trying to find a good ground on the right side of the bed, have you found one, other than the filler tube on the left side?

FL335i · January 24, 2018

Have not found any other bed to frame grounds other than the fuel filler neck. Again, I added my own bed to frame ground strap, sharing the frame bolt for the fuel filler neck ground. My headlight flickering BS is also fixed. So now the truck honks when I lock it and the headlights don't dim with the blinker. Curious to see if my SWR's are lower now. I still plan on running a ground wire from the battery negative terminal to the passenger side fender. know where I got that idea from.... Looked at the grounds on my '89 K5. It has a 10ga wire going from the neg post to the passenger fender along with the main wires to the block and frame.

Edited January 24, 2018 by FL335i

Ravenkeeper · April 21, 2018

On 1/23/2018 at 4:30 PM, Ravenkeeper said:

My CB antenna is mounted on the right side bedrail, and has a high (2+) SWR. I'm thinking it's because of the mount isn't ground to the vehicle very well, doesn't have a good ground plane, and I'm looking at going dual antenna to hopefully lower my SWR, even more than grounding my mount. I'm trying to find a good ground on the right side of the bed, have you found one, other than the filler tube on the left side?

Come to find out, I put the antenna on my mount bracket incorrectly. My bracket is getting a great ground with the way it is mounted to the bedrail, especially as long as the "gasket" is on top, between the top of the bedrail and the mount bracket. Meter SQUEALED at me checking the ground between the mount bracket and the right rear door catch.

As stated elsewhere, bed is grounded through all of the nuts/bolts. The fuel tube ground is for the fuel going into the truck.

sdeeter19555 · April 21, 2018

Come to find out, I put the antenna on my mount bracket incorrectly. My bracket is getting a great ground with the way it is mounted to the bedrail, especially as long as the "gasket" is on top, between the top of the bedrail and the mount bracket. Meter SQUEALED at me checking the ground between the mount bracket and the right rear door catch.

As stated elsewhere, bed is grounded through all of the nuts/bolts. The fuel tube ground is for the fuel going into the truck.

Antenna grounding has little to do with electrical grounding...

2012 2500hd 6.0l CCSB 4wd

Ravenkeeper · April 24, 2018

They still get grounded to a vehicle ground.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Ravenkeeper

sdeeter19555 · April 24, 2018

No, no they don't need to...

2012 2500hd 6.0l CCSB 4wd

Ravenkeeper · April 24, 2018

http://www.firestik.com/Tech_Docs/Mnt-Grnd.htm

sdeeter19555 · April 24, 2018

Firestick is the probably the worst resource you could quote.

An antenna needs two things, a poise and a counterpoise... it can be completely isolated from the vehicle ground. If what you want to believe was true, the how would a base station work...

I'm done here...I have nothing to prove.

2012 2500hd 6.0l CCSB 4wd

Ravenkeeper · April 25, 2018

Not just Firestik, but several (if not all) other CB antenna sources out there, all state that your mount needs to be grounded. Magnet mount antennas get "grounded" through the shielding of the coax, back to/through the radio.

And to answer your base station question, YES, it gets grounded too.

And like you, me and my 30+ years experience are done.

CB Antenna Ground:

https://www.wearecb.com/testing-cb-antenna-ground.html

https://www.rightchannelradios.com/blogs/troubleshooting-guides/18428219-testing-for-a-ground

https://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/how-do-i-ground-the-antennas.146708/

Base Station Ground:

https://itstillworks.com/ground-cb-base-station-antenna-2923.html

https://forums.radioreference.com/cb-radio-forum/348744-cb-base-station-antenna-grounding-question.html

sdeeter19555 · April 25, 2018

Well, I've seen guys with 60 years of radio experience that don't know the difference between electrical ground and signal properties.

2012 2500hd 6.0l CCSB 4wd