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Ground Wire Write Up


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Comments are welcome...

Here's what you will need:

The new wire to be used for grounding

the connectors

silver solder

soldering iron

wire brush and or dremel with wire brush attachment (to clean up contact points on engine)

channel locks (to crimp the connectors)

wire cutters (heavy duty especially with the 4g i used)

exacto knife/ straight razor (to strip the casing back)

10mm (to remove the bolts/nut)

vice

So first you need to track down your supplies. I picked up 4 gauge wire from a local stereo shop, they also had the crimp on connectors I needed. I headed to radio shack for the silver solder.

Next you can remove the old grounds (with the 10mm) and clean up the mountain points with the wire brush or dremel. A worthwhile note is that the ground on the left side of the block (standing in front of the car) is a real oh yeah! to get off and back on because of space issues. So, have some patience.

Proceed to match and cut the appropriate length needed for the new ground wire, strip it to the necessary length for the connectors and now its time to crimp/solder.

I first crimped the connector onto the wire (with the channel locks, since I didn't have a pair of crimpers that would fit this size connector). Then put the wire in a vise and proceeded to coat the exposed wire in the silver solder (see PIC). If you bought connectors without the tubing to cover the connector you can use electrical tape, liquid electrical tape, heat shrink tubing e/t/c. Repeat for the other end and BLAMO! New ground wires.

Mount them back up and now you can marvel at the cool new ground wire you made all by yourself. Gains are little if none (unless your wires where shot). I did notice a little bit smoother idle (didn't get to take a test drive to really put them through the paces :lol: ). But, the aesthetic points are great, plus you have the piece of mind that your grounds are all good.

Now, I only did the 2 grounds coming off of the block. There are others that you can do such as the negative battery terminal and essentially anywhere you see a wire attached to a piece of the engine bay. However the 4 gauge will not be appropriate for all of these grounding points so do a little research to find what they are attached to before you start yanking.

allthestuff.jpg

all the stuff

oldwire.jpg

old wire

solder.jpg

crimped and soldered connector (this is one of the crapier ones i did but it gets the point across)

newwire.jpg

new wire!

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i don't know why you "need" it either...like i said i think its just incase you don't have heat shrink tubing, connector covers e/t/c.

what do you mean by specs of the connectors? they are gold plated, round and fit rather well :D

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All you need is 4AWG wire, 2 connectors, a pair of siccors, and a hammer. I made some more today. Cut off about 3/4 inch of the sleeve, slide the connector in, and hammer the mofo. Works better than C clamp. Solering is nice, but not needed. I can't pull the connector out after I hammer it.

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All you need is 4AWG wire, 2 connectors, a pair of siccors, and a hammer.  I made some more today.  Cut off about 3/4 inch of the sleeve, slide the connector in, and hammer the mofo.  Works better than C clamp.  Solering is nice, but not needed.  I can't pull the connector out after I hammer it.

Wow that sounds like quality. And the liquid electrical is needed to seak the wired. Any moisture and they will degrade. They will not fall apart but any oxidation puts you back to square one.

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I would love to do this tomorrow (I have already replaced the two factory ones, but I have about 12 feet of wire left over from my amp install, so I figured what the heck.) so could someone please elaborate on all the appropriate places to run these to/from? Gratzie.

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hammer the mofo.  Works better than C clamp.  Solering is nice, but not needed.  I can't pull the connector out after I hammer it.

Chuck... remember, the more you hammer it, the more HP gain.

And if you use super shiney "gold" spade rings, thats good for another few HP as well. :D

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