Battery ground wire

Was just curious about the ground wire that goes from the negative side of the battery to the side of the fender well area. How important is it? I just noticed mine wasn't connected when I installed my new aluminum battery hold down (Thank you Coupe!!!). It must've broke off not too long ago when I replaced the battery.

 

It's fairly important as that is the main ground for all the electrical in your truck I believe.
@TXpro4X4 What do you think, your the electrical guy

 

That little wire???? The yellow crimped terminal.

 

Holy crap!

 

The entire negative from the battery cable goes there too... right??

 

The main negative cable is connected. It's the smaller one that's not connected anymore.

 

Ahh ok, if the main one is connected your good. What accessory does the yellow crimped wire go to? That's the one you will have a problem with

 

yes it is important... this insures that the items that are grounded to the sheet metal of the truck get grounded to the battery.

 

Okay. Looks like that's on my todo list for tomorrow. Glad it's an easy fix. Thanks to both of you for the quick replies. Really appreciate it!

 

The big ground cable from the battery is connected to the transmission (or maybe the engine). You need a big cable grounded there because the starter uses so much current. Also, the alternator provides all the current when the car is running and it's grounded through the engine block/transmission back to the battery.

You are missing that ground wire to the body near the battery, but there is another ground wire from the firewall (or right fender) to the/a cylinder head, so all the power from your circuits that are grounded to body go through this wire, through the engine/transmission, then back through the big ground wire to battery. If this second ground wire got disconnected you'd lose the body to battery ground and most of your circuits (lights, etc.) would stop working, so it's good to have both grounds.

 

My ground cable next to the battery just rusted off. The one Toyota put on there is so small and flimsy. I went out to PepBoys and bought a heavy gauge starter wire and used that as the new ground cable.

I grounded it behind the fuse box Bolt instead of where it usually is because my Morimoto HID relay mounts to where it originally was.

 

Bigger in grounds is always better.

 

I would re-do that ground. Basically you have a plastic piece shoving the cable against what looks like a painted surface. You want a clean piece of body to press against and a corrosion free bolt doing the work and touching the cable. In the world of grounds, there cannot be too many. You can pretty much ground everything that's not B+ to everything else that is not B+. The hole that is forward of where you have the cable would be better than the setup you have now.

 

That's probably a good idea, I'm just working with I could with the limited space.

 

That's 1/3 of the 'big 3' upgrade.

 

I was thinking the same thing as rzgkane. I like to run a tap through the bolt hole to clean up the metal threads so I get a good electrical connection from the top of the bolt to the body.

The alternator provides all of the current when the engine is running, so I wonder if it's better to put a bigger ground cable from the body to the ground point on the transmission (where the battery cable grounds) rather than to the battery negative. It probably doesn't matter too much since the ground cable between battery and transmission is big anyway.

 

if your body ground isn't connected, all kind of weird electrical shit and problems can arise

Bad grounds and bad batteries are known to cause these trucks to go mad, electrically speaking

 

I Bought my truck with no battery ground and i haven't had a problem... yet. I never really gave it much thought.

 

Your body is grounded somewhere or you'd be having exorcist type stuff happening. Just might not be grounded in the most obvious place right by the battery.

 

Well said. Grounds are there for a reason and not keeping them all connected and in good shape can cause a plethora of problems that can be very hard to track down. If you are not aware of the importance of grounding, that is.