Dear Folks,

I am having trouble identifying a ground strap located on the left side of
the engine.  This is on my 1990 Vanagon Multivan.  It looks like its
grounded to the engine block along with another wire that has a brown or
black insulation.  This ground strap travels toward the front of the engine
and looks like it might end attaching to an exhaust system bracket which I
have discovered is also partially missing due to corrosion.  This bracket
is a straight piece of metal with a whole for a bolt at each end.  This
bracket appears to be a reinforcement piece which attaches itself to the
front left side exhaust pipe forming a reinforcemant bridge between the two
flange ports on this pipe.  This reinforcement piece is clearly depicted on
page 26.9 of the Bentley manual.  My question is this:  Does this ground
strap attach to one of the bolts that holds this reinforcement piece onto
this pipe?  Or if this is not were this ground attaches, does anyone know
were it should attach.  It seems like a strange place to ground a strap but
I can't see were else it might go.

Also regarding this reinforcement bracket, has anyone had luck welding a
tab of metal onto this exhaust flange/connection so that this bracket could
be replaced.  The rest of this front exhaust pipe on my van is solid and
the connections are still good, it seems dumb to have to replace the whole
front pipe just to install a new bracket.

If anyone knows of the ground strap I'm talking about could you possible
identify on the wiring diagram in the Bentley manual for me?

BTW I am having no electrical problems at this point, I just found this
doing an inspection of the exhaust system.

As always, appreciate the help.

Tim Marciniak