Can anyone tell me what this is ? It's located on the same thread as the ground for my EBCM. At least I think that's the ground. I took it off the ground wire and brushed it with a wire brush. There was absolutely zero corrosion or dirt on it. However I am trying to get rid of the traction control light. The ground is what I was told to address for a solution. This little black connector appears to be a bundle of ground wires. My guess anyway ?

 

It's a ground splice pack. Essentially a multi terminal connector with all the terminals bridged and connected to that grounding tab. They're a common ground failure point due to corrosion. You can carefully open them up and clean them.

 

I typed the title wrong. I took the ground sllice pack off and wire brushed it. I didn't take it apart. I also wiped off the other large single ground that shares the same thread and nut. When I took the car for a drive the WARNING to service active handling came on as soon as the car turned over. Normally this was intermittent. How do I go from intermittent to full time ! I can say it convinced me the ground is the problem. Now how do I fix this ? There is no corrosion never was, could the wires be damaged or could the wires be corroded inside the plastic coating ? It splices into a bundle so I don't want to create a bigger problem than I already have on my hands.

 

You probably need to take the splice pack apart by releasing the lock and removing the connector from the lug. Each wire has a male and female connection inside the splice pack. With your removing and pulling, you may have taken an intermittent connection and made it permanently open. It is not always corrosion that gets these....... There are broken wires, bad internal connections due to stress or vibration, etc.

Next pull the codes on your DIC and report back. It may not be a ground at all.

 

Hope this thread is still helping everyone!!

Bill

 

It is...still VERY relevant.

 

 

Is there a secret to disconnect the cap assembly (the part of the connector with the lug) from the connector? I found a drawing of the connector at:
https://marypartsshop.blogspot.com/2...ble-stock.html
and as far as I can tell, there's no locking mechanism to secure the cap assembly to the connector body. There is a very anemic locking mechanism on the TPA (see the drawing) and that part came right out, no problem. But the cap assembly doesn't want to budge. Any suggestions?

Could be the contacts are so corroded that it will never come apart, and I should just slice it off and strip and crimp the wires to a lug, and solder that then put it back on it's stud.

GMV

 

I recall reading a Bill Curlee post from some time ago where a GM engineer had said to do exactly that.

 

You can spray some contact cleaner where the wires go in to possibly free the lock a bit, give it a few minutes, then tap it with a hammer a couple times to possibly break the bonds. Still have to pry it off with a small screwdriver.
Or cut and splice. I'd use the heatshrink tubing with glue to try and weatherproof it a little if you go that route.

 

Put a vise grip on the metal tang, stick small screwdrivers under the plastic where the little lock tabs are , HOLD the vise grip and pull wiggle the black plastic case while pulling the vise grip. It will come out. Get someone to help pull the vise grip or the plastic body.
. As others have stated, you could do the C6 Conversion and just lop it off, strip, crimp and solder the wires into a copper eyelet and be done with it.

 

They used to make copper tubes that can be crimped then soldered. I'm going to take that route, because even if I clean the contacts like Bill Curlee's post said, the fretting corrosion will come back. So I'll stick all the cut ground leads into one side of the tube, then a 14 ga pigtail in the other end, and crimp both sides and solder. Cover that crimp with heat shrink tubing, then I can get a 14mm lring solder lug and crimp then solder that to the pigtail.

The chassis stud is steel. After checking with a natural sciences professor at my son's university, the best method to attach the lugs is to use a bronze star washer and NO-OX-ID conductive grease at the chassis interface, then put on the lugs. Can't use brass washers because brass is copper + zinc, and the zinc is highly galvanically active when touching steel, causing corrosion. . Back in my printer design life, we used star washers everytime we joined 2 metallurgies (like copper lug to steel chassis) to get a gas-tite seal. It doesn't fix the fretting corrosion, just air and water ingress to the physical contact points The NO-OX-ID is just better to prevent moisture from getting to the contact points. Then in 20 years, to fix fretting corrosion grounding problems, all the new owner will have to do is loosen the nuts, move the lugs slightly and retighten the nuts, creating a nice fresh and new gas-tite seal.

I intend to bequeath this car to my son, who says he wants it. It should last until we run out of gas, or it becomes illegal. It's really the best car I ever owned.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that newer cars with all their electronic sensor technology, have the same fretting corrosion problem, and that's why so many newer car owners complain about the cost of replacing electronic modules. Modules that probably don't need to be replaced, only their connectors need to be cleaned/reseated.

GMV