tbiga

On my 65, the ground strap on the accelerator has broken. Its mostly attached to the accelerator but I'm not seeing where the other end has broken from. Any one know where it supposed to be attached?

champs65

I'm nearly positive it goes to the rearmost intake manifold bolt. Mine had frayed off, and there was still a lug with a bit of copper groundstrap attached to it at that bolt.

Jim_C

tbiga
Correct, rear manifold bolt.
CUL Jim

1snake

Correct, except the strap and the bolt go on the outside of the accelerator lever.

Jim

tbiga

Thank you that helps a great deal. When i got the car the engine was out of it, I've been looking all over the firewall with no luck. Now i know why.

62Jeff

Steel cars ground to the firewall, corvettes - not so much.

DZAUTO

Tom Parsons

6T7L71CPE

So, what exactly are we grounding this for?? Is it another RF interference ground? Thanks

tbiga

The easy answer is I'm chasing gremlins.

The long answer is almost impossible to explain without leaving people scratching their heads. It all started with me thinking my wiper motor was bad, but by adding a test/extra ground wire the wiper motor works fine. Knowing that ground strap was broken was a hopeful easy fix.

The crazy thing has turned out to be that if I connect my test light to a ground, and touch the wiper motor housing the wiper motor is hot. But not to get to far ahead of myself as I still need to do some investigating before I ask, but it appears that there is a single plug connector on the lower part of the wiper motor that I "think" (i'll be hoest i'm not 100% sure what it is for) is supposed to be a ground but the wire connected to it was a hot wire. I also need to determine what exactly the 2 prong/plug connect wire are hot and ground two hots, two ground etc.. (i'm not electronics expert)

While I'm typing all this I'll ask. The wiper switch in the dash as 3 prongs, but on mine, only two are connected by a double plug the 3rd single prong has nothing connected to it. Is that correct or is there supposed to be something connected to the single.

Hopefully, that didn't leave everyone scratching their heads.


It's all new to me and I'm just trying to take my time and figure out whats amiss. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Geek's 65

Two prongs go to the wiper motor to control speed. Third prong is for the washer pump and I think it has a separate connector. Look for a single connector with a dark blue wire hanging around. That should be the pump wire.

To be honest I haven't played with my wiper motor (it's CA and I don't drive it in the rain). But looking at the schematic, the wiper motor gets power and then looks for a combination of grounds from the wiper switch to control the speed. No grounds - Off, both wires grounded - lo speed, the black/light blue wire grounded and the other open - hi speed.

JohnZ

The wiper motor housing being "hot" is usually the result of having the starter harness ground wire connected to the battery cable stud on the starter solenoid instead of being under the head of the outboard starter-to-block bolt. There are two black wires with large ring terminals on them coming out of the bottom end of the starter harness on a '65; one is 18-ga. black (sense wire for the battery gauge), and it goes on the big battery cable stud on the solenoid. The other one is 14-ga. black, and its ring terminal goes under the head of the outboard starter bolt - it's the ground for the heater blower and wiper motor. The holes in the ring terminals are the same size, and if the 14-ga. black one winds up on the big battery cable stud, it puts 12 volts on the heater blower ground spade and on the wiper motor housing ground spade. See photo below - the wiper motor housing ground male spade terminal is adjacent to the 3-wire terminal board connection.

The main connection at the wiper motor has three wires - the center one is brown (12V to the motor), and the end ones (yellow, and black/light blue) are motor field grounds. The washer pump wires are brown (12V) and dark blue (ground from switch).

Great diagram below (from Buns) shows how the wiper and washer circuits work.

6T7L71CPE

Well, I meant, why did the factory ground the accelerator! I do know where you are comming from though, my clock ground terminal had the hot wire on it. It led to a small fire works display.

tbiga

JohnZ thank you very much for all that great info. That will be more than helpful in solving my problem.

TheSaint

Great picture and diagram JohnZ

JohnZ

Here's another one.

VetteJohn

Anyone got an answer to the question?

Inquiring minds want to know!

62Jeff

I'll take a guess, if nothing else it hopefully will elicite a correction.

I suspect that as the gas pedal moves on the throttle rod, it creates static electricity which is otherwise isolated from the chassis due to the nylon fittings on either end of the accelerator linkage.

The ground strap at the linkage would allow that static to discharge, preventing the AM radio from making static popping noises.