My sister has a Chevy full-size van, 1992 I believe, the problem is that her air/heater, power windows,radio and speedometer don't work. She has also complained of the transmission not shifting, as well as a miss in the engine and the ABS light always on. Have checked fuses in which all are fine. Any ideas?
Thank you, Bruce
Grounds are so overlooked, but so important.
Run a heavy jumper from engine block to cowl Solder the terminals, scrape steel until shiny, use a stainless screw, and paint over to prevent corrosion. Run a heavy jumper from block to frame, laugh at that dizzy thing that goes to negative cable, it's fastened to painted metal with a sheet metal screw
Good idea but dont solder, Use a crimp on terminal or purchase a grounding strap. If there is a substanial amount of current flowing in the ground conection it will melt or at least crystalise the solder.
Nonsense... If there is that much heat, either the connection is poor or the wire is too small. Crimp only connectors are notoriously unreliable. Crimp and solder is the best way to go. H
Jimmie wrote in alt.autos.gm
The best type of connection you can make is a soldered connection. If the current flowing is enough to melt the solder, there is a damned big problem.
"Hairy" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de...
That much localised heat can easily be developed, solder melts in the neighborhood of 350 F and is weakened at a lot less. Temps that can be easily reach under the hood of a car even without current in the circuit. Solder is a relatively poor conductor compare to to copper and it cant handle the current in a alot of ground circuits that can easily be in the range of 10 amps or more. You only get unreliable crimp connections when they are installed improperly. This is usually cause by using the improper sized connector, poor or improper tools or the person doing it doesnt know how. This is proven by the fact that it has become the industry standard for connections in saftey related componets. Its illegal to make the connection you discribed in critical wiring areas of an aircraft. I see you waffled from crimp to crimp and solder. This can be good provided you did a very good crimp job to start with so no solder is drawn into the wire to connector joint but if you did this you would not need the solder. The first thing anyone who does electrical soldering is suppose to learn is that the solder is not there to conduct electricity. Its just there to hold the parts together. Of course there are acceptable exceptions to this such as electronic assembly where soldering has been proven reliable enough for current loads in the milliamp range and vibration is not a problem. This is why aircraft builders dont solder terminals, NASA doesnt do it and your house isnt wired with soldered connections.
A solder joint can be melted with less than an amp, 10s of times less than may be flowing in a grounding strap.
Jimmie wrote in alt.autos.gm
Really? And how poorly made is that joint? I used to work in a plant where we routinely repaired 2300 volt lines, carrying over a 100 amps, with solder joints. Crimp on connectors are subject to vibration, and much more prone to breakage than any solder joint ever hoped to be. Note, I am not disputing using a crimp connector for the ground strap, as it will work just fine. I am simply debating your claims about solder joints.
An ampere at 12 volts (12 watts) sure is not going to melt solder unless it is a tiny wire and a tiny bit of solder. I go along with the solder joint. Crimp connectors invariably corrode.
Bet you didnt use 60/40 solder. Per the NEC it is soldering that makes these joints more susceptable to vibration. When joints are soldered extra care most be taken to make sure wires do not flex at the connection. Situation is even worse when the joint is not properly soldered. Usually this means allowing the solder to flow to far up the wire and under the insulation. The wire will break right at the edge of the solder. Learned this many years ago the hard way. To have soldering improve a crimp- on connection it really has to be done right. This means having the knowledge and exprience to do both the crimp and solder right. I will admit that good to mediorce soldering is better tthan a bad crimp and when done properly solder is excellent for sealing a good crimp job where it is exposed to water and crud.
Not if properly made and sealed. I see more broken wires where the solder starts on the wire than corroded crimp joints.
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