I need some help with this damn wire! It is the PINNACLE OF EVIL. You guys have no idea how much trouble it has given me. The wire is a ground wire going directly to the battery from the harness in the front.

With the wire unhooked, the truck won't start to save my life. It has all sorts of weird EFI issues with it unhooked/bad connection. And my problem is, I can't ever seem to keep a good connection!

When I swapped in my engine I had a problem, it wouldn't start! I thought it must be a ground, so I checked them all, I actually added in another ground to try to fix it.. After all this trouble screwing around I had to take it to a shop, where three days of working on it they found the problem. $170 to show me what was wrong. (They didn't even fix it!)

So I put a new wire on there and attached it to the battery, well ever since then everytime my truck has had a problem starting its been that. Well my truck hasn't been starting at all for quite awhile.. I flushed the fuel, checked relays, everything. Then the other night I randomly just remembered this wire from ages ago. Sure enough, I went out tonight and wiggled it and the truck fired up first crank.





Now, can anyone tell me WHAT IS THIS WIRE, and is it possible to add another wire ELSEWHERE to avoid this damn thing? I hate my truck being on a life or death kind of thing just because of this one little wire. I plan to solder a wire on to avoid those damn crimp on connections, but I want to have some insurance. Is it possible to add another wire elsewhere to ground this?

 

That is the ground wire for the EEC Computer and the EEC Power Relay.
And yes without this wire having a good ground the engine will not start.
The original wire color would be black with a green stripe or a white stripe.



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Thanks for the information Subford.

Is there somewhere else in the harness that I can splice in another ground? I do not like that the only ground for this thing is going right to my battery. I probably wouldn't mind it, but I can never get a good connection on it.

Does this wire have to be grounded to the battery or can I ground it elsewhere and still have it work?

 

I am not sure what you are using for the ground at the battery. I would have used the nut on on the battery cable clamp. That may be your problem.

As far as another place you would have to cut into the harness but I would not think that would be a good idea.

 

Well it just seems odd that this is the ONLY ground for the EEC, is it supposed to be grounded another way??

The wire has a crimp on loop, and that is bolted to the battery. Anyways, I just thought it was odd that this was such an important ground, because i've had other trucks that have had this wire but it wasn't hooked up and still worked. It never made a difference if it was hooked up or not on other rigs.

 

Hehe... crimpons. Silly firehazards for people not clever enough to use a soldering iron without hurting themselves.

Trace it back till you find the stock Ford wire (I can see in your pic it's been spliced at least once). Solder a good wire of equal gauge, material, and sheath onto it. Heatshrink.

Solder a good eye-connector onto the end of that wire. Heatshrink it, and ground it to either the body (where the small wire from the neutral battery cable hooks up) or to the engine block where the fat end of the neutral wire goes.

Do not connect any wires to the battery other than the two that belong on there. Acid eats little connectors like that. It kills me when I see people tagging everything to battery posts. Just asking for lost connections/fires.

Single grounds from the ECM are common. You should be glad Ford used such a big wire. GM used a 16 or 18ga wire to ground everything from the ECM in the 80's.

 

Yes it is the only ground for the power relay and the EEC Computer.

None of the Ford trucks with a EEC Computer will run without this ground going to the battery. So you must be thinking about another wire or a truck without FI & EEC Control..


This needs to be grounded at the NEG post of the battery and not the body, frame or engine. You do not have the stock battery cable on the truck, You need to buy a battery cable that has this black ground wire made into the end of the cable at the battery.
This wire from the factory has a one wire connector about 10 inches from the battery. Then the wire will be black with a green stripe from then on to the relay and EEC.


This ground wire grounds all of the solenoids, fuel injectors and relay coils by way of the EEC Computer.

 

Get a new wire. You can always go heavier gauge without hurting anything. Then solder the connectors on. Clean battery terminals til they sparkle. Connect new soldered wire to clean connections. Put the new wire on the same post as the clamp.

Simple as that.

 

Prozon, I'm laughing now, but I was not when I had the exact same problem with my 88 f150. That is what originally prompted me to join this group, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise.

Engine

 

What the hell are you doing wrong that you cause fires crimping things to wires? I mean really.. are you fricking retarded?



You pretty much just restated what you said in the first paragraph? If you had read my posts, I stated that I already plan to solder the connection. Thanks for reading. . And the splice is right where you see it, thats as far back as it goes.



So I should pretty much ignore everything Aaron has said, correct? :P


What do you mean everything? There is my normal negative and positive cables, then the winch lead is bolted to the extra bolt and that wire on the other one. I don't really know how to power a winch without getting power from my battery. Sorry if two wires is too high for you.



Always good to know i'm being laughed at hahaha. Yeah it really is a pain in the butt, I went through my whole wiring harness, I guess thats the only part I missed lol. I didn't even see it when I was running through the harness.


Thanks for all your help Subford, I will go buy a new battery cable and solder that connection. You've been a lot of help.

 

Hmm.. interesting. I give some legitimate tech advice, and get called a retard by some South Thurston hick.

Obviously I am a retard. I have only completely rewired two cars ('63 Monterey & '83 S10) and done plenty of other 12V wiring jobs, as well as residential wiring.

Obviously every engineer who ever studied thermal runaway as applied to electronic connections, specifically crimp-ons, was also a retard.

Obviously subford is correct in telling you that you should remove your ECM ground from the location that the Ford engineers placed it, and run it to the negative battery terminal, where it does not belong, because he obviously is much smarter than they were.

Pay attention here: Ford did not ground the ECM to the battery. Neither should you. Ford didn't use crimp-ons anywhere in your truck. Neither should you.

If you want to do it anyway, I applaud your obvious ingenuity. I hope your truck often no-starts in the morning keeping you off the road, and out of my way.

Best of luck to you in all your mechanical attempts.

 

You sound like an educated person but this statement is technically incorrect. All is dependant on the quality of the materials and the work (Crimp/solder job). Remember, Solder is not meant to be glue and is not recommended in a wire to wire conection. I do recommend soldering your crimped connections though. The solder seals the crimp and probably will make a better connection than the cheap crimp tools and hardware that most people purchase can produce while at the same time sealing out o2 which will rust our cheap chinese crimp hardware.

Would you care to bet? Take apart any one of those connectors to reveal the terminals and nearly all of them are crimped. I can't recall ever seeing a soldered terminal. There are few exceptions like the battery cable head end...

 

Yes Aaron, you obviously are. Oh and Aaron, I just want to point out that you insulted my intelligence before I thought to do it to you. Do I care what you have rewired? No I honestly don't. Wiring isn't hard. I simply asked if you were stupid, because you seem to start fires crimping things together.

And Subford was correct, he did not tell me to RELOCATE the wire such as you have. The ORIGINAL wire comes out of the harness at the battery.

I am not being ingenuitive in any way by fixing a wire from a previous owner. Oh and don't worry, I won't see you. Now if you are done, I do not need your assistance in this thread. Thanks for trying though.

 

Agreed. Typically I use crimped connections designed to be soldered (all metal, no sheath) or Packard connectors, which I then solder, and either shrinkwrap or place in a Packard connector clip.


You are correct. There is almost no solder in a factory-app; to time consuming. Most of them run Packard crimp connectors, machine-pressed, and in a weatherpack connector clip. Big difference between that type of connection, and one of those hardware store plastic-sheathed crimp jobs.

 

Well there's some positive input! Thanks Aaron. (Genuine.)