Grounds ... Important Often Overlooked

[DriVer]

If you are trying to diagnose any condition between your motorhome and your toad try this neat easy to do trick.

Get your jumper cables and clamp one side on to the back of your motorhome, the hitch bolts will do and then clamp the other end on a bare steel component or negative battery connection or both like I did.

Once I jumpered BOTH vehicles in this manner, the auxiliary brake worked as it should and the brake and tail lights were brilliant.

This is the easiest thing you can do to start off with without taking every connector apart to verify deteriorated connections.

I hope this helps someone. It's the quickest and easiest thing to do that will rule out the most important part of any 12 volt DC circuit.

Rule #1 - Assure a good ground.

[Route 66]

Bad grounds have probably caused more electrical problems than all of the other problems combined.

[DriVer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Route 66 Bad grounds have probably caused more electrical problems than all of the other problems combined.

Dirk, You're absolutely right. Now put this concept into thought, the ground circuit is a 50% partner in anything that flows in a direct current circuit. Assuring connectivity here is often the easiest thing to do since once you ground the chassis there are hundreds of points where you can pick up a ground but how that ground. Assuring connectivity to the ground where ever it is critical in order for the attached equipment to function properly.

On the back of my motorhome, I have a ground that comes from the front of the vehicle to the rear and there is a ground on a separate connection that goes to the Pollock plug. The ground that came from the front was attached to a welded stud. When I went to verify that attachment and just touched the wire, it practically fell into my hand as I touched it. The repair involved cutting and crimping on new connectors and joining both of those ground to a common point.

Lesson learned here is a wire may visibly show that it's attached however any diagnosis requires that a hands on inspection is required and if that's worth the effort, remove the ground connection, inspect the connector, clean and restore the cable. Try to improve on the ground by using a serrated washer. The washer bites into the metal.