I have been told that I can solder a ground wire to the headlight socket of my car, then run the wire to a better ground on the frame. has anyone ever done this? I keep getting the lights to work "bright" then I drive and test them again and one of the lamp's will go dim "I believe due to not adequate ground". my plan is to drill a small hole in the bottom of the headlight and run the wire down next to the other headlight/horn wires then screw the wire onto the frame.
I am far from a expert but on my 65 studebaker I was having issues with dim headlights and having them work then not work. I got the grounds straightened out and every thing works fine. My car had grounds on the headlights just had to make good connections and it is 12 volts.
To answer your question, YES you can. But it is a "work around", not a fix. Be sure all mounting points are clean of paint, corrosion, rust, etc.. 6 volt systems are a little fussy but work just fine. Make sure battery cables are good and clean at mounting points.
Sometimes just a jumper from the frame to a fender will be fine. I have added a ground wire to the headlight/taillights looms also before, then ground it to the frame. Neat and clean. Fresh paint, headlight stand pads, all things that get in the way of a good ground.
You can never have too many grounds. But why do you need to drill another hole in the bucket? Can't you go out the same hole as the other wires with your new ground wire and then to the frame?
the bottom of the headlight has a socket that meets another socket from the bottom, can not use the same hole, I have considered popping out the plug that contacts the bottom plug, but I was trying to leave it mostly stock. however now I am considering popping that out so I can just run wires all the way through without having to figure out what contact touches what contact. also REALLY want to convert to 12V but not sure how to just yet. still researching.
I would suggest you get a terminal strip and run all your light and horn ground wires to it, and from the terminal strip, a ground wire directly to the battery post terminal. Skip the iffy ground path of sheet metal body parts to frame etc. etc. Years ago I worked in VW service training and thru '66 models, VW's were still 6 volt systems. Both the starter solenoid and horn circuits were notorious for resistance in the mul***ude of connections in each circuit. We would teach students how to measure voltage drop at each connection point. Most had only a little at each, but added together, the voltage drop would soon render the circuit unreliable at best and 'dead' at worst. My point being, minimize the number of 'connections' in any circuit for best results, especially with only 6 volts to start with.. Ray
I am considering getting a ground bar and putting it somewhere on the car where all the grounds would go to. I want to know if I should solder a wire to the socket and run that wire to the ground bar/frame or just clean grounds and hope for the best?
Not sure what your working on car wise, But originally it probably didn't have a bunch of ground wires. Never hurts to have clean grounds. A wire from the bucket to the headlight stand might help, have to mess around and see, what works well is a couple of alligator clips on a piece of 3-5' wire to test it out.
It's a good idea to use star washers on the screws/bolts at your grounding points. It makes for a better connection.
See above. Measure the voltage drop with your voltmeter with circuit under load. For example the entire drop in the ground circuit. One probe on the battery negative post and the other on the negative terminal on the headlight itself. Zero is best of course though 0.2 volts is considered acceptable. You can then narrow the test and isolate further, right down to single connection, for example between the battery post and terminal. Voltage seeks the easiest path so any voltage drop will be displayed as a positive number.
I've used Delco or Niehoff relays purpose made for headlights. They should still be available, & I hope they still look "right." Have we discussed your voltage regulator setting yet ?
A relay is an extra complication. On a car with a wire from socket to a screw in fender or radiator mount, I would first clean that up and grease to prevent rusting, THEN drop down a new wire from that and run it incon****uously back to where your batter ground bolts to car...and clean and grease that too. As noted above, you cannot be too thorough on grounds on an old car...***ume all of them are draining current at ever joint!
Yep. Once the electrons slow down to the speed of rust, they just can't move the photons... Two rules of physics: 1. You need more and better ground paths. 2. Any trouble you cannot understand will turn out to be a ground issue. In an ideal world you'd run wires back to the firewall end of the battery ground, and have everything hook there...the car body would be totally out of the loop. I try to have the engine at least grounded back to there, and also things that are real important...like the lights.
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