Burnt grounds

[JSVD]

While driving yesterday I smelled some melting plastic and then the gauges all turned off. We pulled over, popped the hood and a few grounds were burnt.

This makes sense as the truck has been having strange electrical problems. Mainly the batteries draining slowly while sitting.

The grounds which are burnt are the skinny strap from the block to the firewall, the ground off the pass - to the body/regulator, and the 2 pin ground on the driver side battery.

My thought is the truck has a grounding issue and too much power was flowing through these small connections.


I have a few questions.

What do you call the 2 pin connection comming of the drivers -? What does it ground? The interior lights and accesories? Recommended replacement?

Next what could we have fried? Really anything but my thoughts are as the passenger side took the worst of it we should check the ignition switch, starter, regulator, and alternator.

 

[Dsl_Dog_Treat]

If the regulator doesn't have a good solid ground, be prepared for a thermonuclear occurrence. That single ground played heck with me 2 years ago and exploded the FSS inside the IP due to the failed ground causing the Alternator to full field and crammed 18V in the system at a full 100 amps. Had plenty of melted wiring to repair and it all centered around the grounds.
You should have a 10 gauge ground wire coming off the intake to the wiper motor. If that's toast, it'll ground itself thru the gauges or anything else within the cab as that's the primary cab ground wire.

I'd start with getting all of the grounds up to par and go from there.

 

[DaveBen]

Clean them off and make sure they are tight. Grounds cause more electrical problems than any thing else.

Dave

 

[JSVD]

we may have gotten lucky as we charged the batteries up and reconnected everything. Discovered in this process that one of the large battery wires was shorting out to the body of the truck. Taped that up and everything works. Looks like rather than the small grounds being overloaded it was just frying them because the body was getting power through the battery cable.

 

[DaveBen]

Change the cable. It will happen again when you least expect it. Make sure nothing is touching the cable.

Dave

 

[JSVD]

yeah we plan on still changing out some stuff and tidying the electrical equipment up.