Hey Roger,

Hope you didn't get too wet and cold!  Thanks for taking a peek for me.
Based on all the responses from the list I am pretty sure that I have all
the factory grounds in place.  I have gone through and cleaned them all down
to shiny metal.  Last night I connected my ohmmeter to the negative battery
terminal and the main ground for the fuel injection on the block.  The
resistance was below detection on my meter (<0.01 ohms) so I think the
grounds are good.  Just to be sure, I am going through and clipping the old
terminals off of the wires and soldering new ones on.  I also picked up an
insulated 2 gauge copper wire that I am going to use to replace the main
tranny to chassis ground strap.  This should totally eliminate any
possibility that a faulty ground is causing my troubles.  

I have read that measuring the resistance of the ground system is not the
best way to evaluate it.  A better method is to:

1. connect your meter between the negative battery terminal and a ground on
the block.
2. disconnect the coil wire
3. turn over the starter and measure the voltage  

In theory if the grounds are bad then you will build up voltage between your
motor and the battery.  I found a post in the archives from 2001 where Ron
Austin claims that anything above 0.5V is totally unacceptable and that
anything less than 0.17V is impossible to achieve.  So I am going to do this
tonight.  I am kinda interested in what kind of voltage others are seeing
when they run this test.  Anyone tried this?

Thanks,
Jake

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
Roger Van Till
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 6:47 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: grounds: air cooled vs water cooled

Jake, I braved the freezing rain for this one. Poked around on top and
under my 81 and didn't see a ground strap any where.

Roger

On Feb 16, 2006, at 8:54 AM, jake beaulieu wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am going through my 82 AC Westy and replacing the terminals on all
> the
> ground wires (well, at least the grounds in the FI systems).  While
> searching the archives I found several references to a ground wire
> that runs
> from the drivers side head to the chassis somewhere near the coil.  I
> do not
> have this ground wire on my van and I am wondering if the PO
> eliminated it,
> or if it was never installed on the air cooled vanagons.  Anyone know?
>
> Thanks,
> Jake
> 82 AC Westy
>