Funny. A few years back a friend called me from his mom's house where his
Volvo would not start. Weird stuff going on. Ran a jumper cable from engine
to neg battery, that did it.

Let's call it the Stockholm Syndrome.

Jim

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Scott Daniel <scottdaniel@turbovans.com>wrote:

> here's a good ground loop story then.
> I tuned up a car , a volvo , once upon a time.
> When it was time to start it ..
> 'the only' thing that would happen is the headlights would come on dimly ..
> nothing else..
> just turn the key to start ..headlights come on dimly.  'That's all you
> get."
>
> It just happened to occur to me to put a big jumper cable from engine
> block to Batt negative post..
> yep ..that did it.
>
>  On that particular car design the main ground cable was under the
> battery where it was covered and eaten away by battery acid. See
> ..engineers and designers are not that smart sometimes.
>
> Nice easy fix..
> lucky I found it so easily.
>
> Scott
>
>
>
> SOn 12/10/2013 12:31 PM, Todd Last wrote:
>
>> You could also get a grounding buss bar for the grounds to substitute for
>> the star, or using a long screw, use that to have multiple grounds on one
>> screw arranged in a star pattern with eye connectors. The idea with a star
>> ground, or buss bar is to eliminate ground loops. That is usually more
>> important in electronic equipment than cars, but I have seen some odd
>> things happen in cars that had phantom current traveling in odd ways
>> because of ground loops or bad grounds.
>>
>> Todd
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>> From: "Scott Daniel" <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
>> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 11:22:56 AM
>> Subject: Re: Looking for Grounding Star
>>
>> I don't even recommend using them.
>> All spade type connections weaken or corrode after a  while.
>>
>> Far better IMO is the eye terminal with a screw through  it.  ..
>> and I learned this additional  neat trick by observing  that Renault did
>> this on their 1970 R16 car's tail light ground wires.
>> I noticed that in about 1980 and have been doing it ever since.
>>
>> get some of those pointy star lock washers.
>> Install that between the metal body of the van and the wire's eye
>> terminal.
>> the sharp points dig in nicely..
>> that will be a solid ground for years and years.
>>
>> scott
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/10/2013 9:39 AM, JRodgers wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone have n extra one of these.
>>>
>>> They mount on the side just under the dash. I sure could use an extra if
>>> anyone wants to part with one.
>>>
>>> JOHn
>>>
>>>