6 Volt grounds. Tips? Tricks? Am I the only one with a problem??

I keep chasing bad grounds in my F-1. Sometimes the tail lights don't work, so I sand a bunch of stuff down to bare metal and they work again, then a few weeks later something else happens, like only the left brake light works if the lights are on etc. I recently re-wired the whole thing with an original style harness and it was fine for a few weeks, but now the brake lights dont work again. Are there any tips/snake oils? Should I just hard wire all the connections together rather than rely on the stock male/female connectors? This is driving me nuts, like a steering wheel on my belt buckle.

 

Good ground to the box is only 1/2 of it. The box must be grounded reliably to the frame. A layer of rust if its old, or a layer of paint if recently redone, results in an intermittent ground. It grounds through a bolt - or doesn't, depending on how bad you need it to work right.

Run a strap between (a clean spot on) the box and (a clean spot on) the frame.

 

Look at the electric panel in you house,all grounding wires are run back to the panel and terminated on a strip directely attached to the main grounding source. Should be the same for a vehicle,every light,motor or whatever should have a separate ground when possible run back to a common terminal strip directly. connected to the battery grounding post.Vehicles have always had shitty grounds,manufacturers cheaped out.Always a problem on older vehicles.On newer cars the mass of electronics forced auto makers to run seperate grounds.
Just take the time to do the grounds properly and you'll never have a problem again.

 

The required amperage to run anything is double that of a 12V system. That amperage is also on the gound side.

 

All those conectors can corrode inside, where the wire is crimped into them.
You can crush them in a different direction and spray with tuner cleaner as a temp fix, but applying new lugs and soldering them is the real fix.

You can test crimped connections with an ohmmeter, one probe on bare wire and the other on the connector. It should read near zero, otherwise there is resistance in the crimp itself.

 

Once you have the grounds good and clean, smear a little silicone di-electric grease over the connection...

 

Invest heavily in star washers.