Topic: electrical gurus, need your help

[78cali]

Brian,
Radiator core support? Is there another ground wire there too?

[78cali]

I'M STUCK!! Still no headlights, horn, dome light, etc. If I wasn't a grown man of 50+, I would throw a tantrum and cry....

[78ta]

To build on what Brian mentioned, run a ground wire directly from the ground wires for your head lights to the negative battery terminal or engine block. You do have the ground wires for the head lights screwed to the front sheet metal right? Then see if the head lights come on. Running a ground straight from the head light ground wire to the battery will tell you if it is a ground problem. If it works with that new ground, your head lights aren't grounded properly. If it still doesn't work with the direct ground, you may not be getting voltage to the head lights.

The way your dash/turn signal lights come on dimly usually indicates a bad/missing ground somewhere. The turn signal light is glowing dimly because something else doesn't have a good ground and it is finding a path to ground through the turn signal bulb. So you need to figure out which ground is missing and provide that. I think it might be the one from the frame to the trans/bell housing. You still need to hook up the ground wire from the frame to the trans or bell housing. Right?

[78ta]

Brian,
The schematic just shows the head light ground as a ground symbol. It doesn't show how the core support is connected electrically to the chassis ground wise. I haven't had my front end apart. Is there a ground wire that connects the core support to the front sub frame or fenders? Or did they just rely on the physical connection of the core support to the fenders and the fenders to the chassis for a ground path?

78cali,
You didn't install fiberglas fenders on this car did you? I'm not even positive that they are available but that would explain why you have no ground path through the fenders if that's what they used for a ground path.

[78cali]

No, fenders are original. I did come across those ground wires on both sides of the fender and they're on there really tight.

[78ta]

Ok, run a wire from the head light ground wire to the negative bettery terminal and see if they work.

[78cali]

Okay, I just did that right now and connected a wire straight from the negative of the battery....still no lights.

[78cali]

It's that wire that's connected to both fenders right?

[78ta]

If you grab the wires that plug into your head light bulbs and follow the black ones, they should be screwed to the sheet metal somewhere close by. Unscrew that screw and attach a wire to that and screw it back into the metal and then touch the other end of that new wire to the negative bettery terminal with the head light knob pulled out. The lights should come on if you are getting voltage to them.

I'll go out to the garage and look to see exactly where it is that the ground sires connect and edit this post in a few minutes. 11:35pm eastern here.

[78cali]

The black wire goes into the harness and out again on both sides of the car. From the harness, it comes out and screwed onto the fender. This is where I connected a wire and the other end to the negative battery.

[78cali]

Yes, I saw that you're from KY. I apologize for keeping you up.

[78ta]

You're not keeping me up. I work 3rd shift and have for so long that I can't sleep at night unless I'm really beat.

So, a dedicated ground and still no lights huh? Just to be sure we're troubleshooting working bulbs, take a regular 9volt radio battery, unplug the head lights and touch the two contacts of the battery to the prongs on each light. The low high/beams wil have three prongs. Just touch the battery to all combinations of prongs. Do your light bulbs work?

If your up and fooling with this right now, you're more than welcome to call me on my cell. 502-759-3837
    

[78cali]

To answer your question above regarding the other ground wire that's connected to the subframe, yes, you're right that's the only one that I haven't connected. Thing is, now that I recall, that wire was never connected to begin with. I always saw that dangling.

[78cali]

I don't have a 9 volt battery, is there another way to check these? Even though I'm very positive that they do work since I took them off a running parts car that I had some time ago. I still want to rule that out.

[78ta]

Ok. That ground still needs to be connected. As I said earlier about the bulbs glowing dimly, that's a sign of a missing ground. Even though you remember it not being hooked up before, it might solve a problem now. This one and the one on the head are called "redundant grounds" because they back each other up in case one fails. I know you said you thought it was too short. Can you piece it together with another piece of wire you have laying around just temporarily?

Do you have a smoke detector in the house? They usually use 9 volt batteries.  Another way to verify the bulbs with out a 9v batt would be to run a wire directly from the positive batt terminal to one prong and take that dedicated ground wire you ran to the neg batt terminal and touch it to one of the other prongs on the bulb.

Do you have a volt meter and do you know how to use it? If so, next thing I would suggest would be to check for 12 volts at the head light plugs.