Headlight ground wires

[Farrar]

Playing "Tetris" in the video arcade back in the old days, you had the opportunity to put your initials in if you achieved a high enough score. My brother would always put his in as "XOR." Now I get it!

Farrar

[Bitsyncmaster]

Have not had much time. The kids and grand kids just require all my time. But I got my circuit built and hooded up temporarily just to test it and it works as planned. I built it without a schematic but if anyone wants to try it I can draw one up.

[Farrar]

Dave's a grandpa? Sweet! I look forward to those days.

Congratulations, Dave!

[Bitsyncmaster]

Dave's a grandpa? Sweet! I look forward to those days.

Congratulations, Dave!

It's a really big deal seeing my granddaughters everyday (wife is the baby sitter). Just amazes me how kids learn things on there own.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Here is my buss bar. Not much to it. Cut from 3/8" thick bar aluminum stock. I put in 6 #10-32 screw holes for the grounds. Presently the two OEM grounds but cut from the connector, the one 6 AWG to frame ground (yes I know it's red and should be black). There will be one more ground for my blinker circuit. So 3 spare places for additional modifications (motorized headlight covers).

[Bitsyncmaster]

Not much to show. I heat shrinked a cover over my circuit and tied it to the center post. I used the fused power for the automatic (fuse #13) for my power. That's actually a fused circuit all you 5 speed guys can use on anything. You need to find that green wire in your harness but it's easy to follow from the fuse.

I need to put the headlights and washer pump back in. Then I will check the voltage drop on my new ground buss.

[DMC5180]

That's interesting you have that support bracket. I don't have one, but did notice I had a couple Threaded Rivnuts in the underbody that I had no idea what they were used for. Now I know. I'm guessing the support was there originally, but was removed by the PO's paint shop. The facias had evidence of refinishing when I got the car.

[Bitsyncmaster]

I did my voltage and current checks without the engine running so I would not get any other currents flowing in the chassis. If the engine was running the alternator would be pushing some current backwards and mess up my voltage drop checks.

Voltage drop from battery neg terminal to my headlight buss bar is 0.047 volts with the high beams (all four headlights) on.

Current flowing in the buss was 16.3 amps. This current would be higher with the engine running.

So the chassis resistance is 2.88 mill/ohm. So if the OEM fans take 40 amps and the headlights 20 amps, that 60 amps would still only drop 0.17 volts over the chassis. So I don't know why DMC decided to run copper ground wires for the headlights. Another question I have is why did they run separate circuits for the parking lights on the drivers side (one circuit) and passenger side (other circuit).

[Ron]

Another question I have is why did they run separate circuits for the parking lights on the drivers side (one circuit) and passenger side (other circuit).

Maybe to save fuse(s) and/or still have at least one light on the front and back if something goes wrong??

[Farrar]

Strangely enough, I once accidentally connected a brown/red wire to a green/white wire. The result was all of the parking lights on with ignition, not just one side or the other. That circuit is a mystery to me.