Should there be a grounding strap from the engine to the body?

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Corrupt_Reverend

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'72 Dart w/318

Got the new motor in yesterday and spent all of today painting and prepping parts to go back on.

While making an itinerary for tomorrow, I remembered that the old engine didn't have a grounding strap. I know the battery grounds straight to the motor, but other cars I've worked on still had a ground going from the engine to the firewall. Did a-bodies not have this?
 
Oh yea, it's a must have.
It can save you some real electrical headaches.
 
Yep, needs at least one. And make sure the paint isn't thick where the strap is attached or you will get a poor ground. Many of the electrical gremlins related to these old cars are caused by bad grounds........either rusted, corroded, or a poor ground caused by too much paint. tmm
 
Passenger side rear of the head to the firewall is where mine is grounded...
 
On my /6, I had the Battery grounded to the radiator bolt, and the block grounded from the head at the back to the firewall ! As stated, make sure you have good metal to metal contact too ! And again, you can never have too many grounding straps !!
 
Passenger side rear of the head to the firewall is where mine is grounded...

Mine is on the drivers side to the brake booster mounts, and it was one of the very first things I bought for the car when it came home.
 
My car has three, one from battery negative to the core support, battery negative to driver side head, passenger side head in the rear to the firewall.
 
If you look at newer cars you'll find they have 2 or 3 ground straps from body to engine. If any one opens up there are redundant paths for ground thus preventing potential problems. I grounded my engine in 2 places and added ground from battery to radiator support area.
 
I always run multiple grounds to the engine, battery and chassis.

I've seen cars use the speedo cable as a ground path, melting the casing from end to end.

Good grounds are essential to electrical component performance. Slow cranking cars are lots of times a grounding issue.
 
I always run multiple grounds to the engine, battery and chassis.

I've seen cars use the speedo cable as a ground path, melting the casing from end to end.

Good grounds are essential to electrical component performance. Slow cranking cars are lots of times a grounding issue.

Seen that before too.
On one car I fixed a long time ago new ujoints were going bad after about 2 weeks and no one could figure out why. :D

Yep, grounding through the driveline and the ebrake cable to the body.
 
My Dad had a 90's Ford truck that burnt out three heater cores (VERY hard and expensive install) due to electrolosis grounding through the coolant.
 
Also, if you are running a factory electronic ignition like the Mopar conversion kit, the ignition box case must be grounded well.
 
If you don't have groundS from the engine to the body and chassis the electrical system WILL GROUND somewhere. ......and that usually ain't good. Steering columns, gear shift linkage, speedometer cables, exhaust and any number of brackets will serve to act as grounds. I've seen a speedometer cable melted slap up from being the main ground. Can you imagine what that'd do to all the instruments in the cluster? Can you say French fry? You need to have several (3 or more) BIG grounds from the engine and or transmission to the fender well, firewall, fender, radiator support, frame rail and any other solid place on the body or chassis. Most electrical gremlins come from faulty grounds. Electricity WILL ground somewhere. If you give it the proper path that somewhere will be the right where.
 
Use a star washer under any ground strap..and the reason they call them straps instead of cables is that the braided strap has more surface area than a cable, and the negative flow travels on the surface of the conductor. Strange but true from an electronics class i took. MSD recommends a strap off both heads to frame on their higher end systems.
 
Say WHAT?!?!

Yes, batt negative to block, then block-head to chassis. It didnt look right at first but i think he was trying to say this. Mines off pass head rear to blower bolt with star washer under both, other one is rear intake bolt To same firewall area.
 
The devil in the details. After a engine bay has a pretty new paint job there are at least 3 places where the paint is scratched to bare metal. Ground strap at firewall is one of them. The engine is grounded to the battery but its isolated from the chassis. The chassis needs to be grounded to the battery also. Nearly everything from tag lamp forward uses this ground path.
 
A bad ground can cause a lot of ignition related issues that you would swear were carb issues including fouled plugs. I know from personal experience.
 
Yes, batt negative to block, then block-head to chassis. It didnt look right at first but i think he was trying to say this. Mines off pass head rear to blower bolt with star washer under both, other one is rear intake bolt To same firewall area.

No, that was in response to the first part of his answer which clearly said "no".
 
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