annoying grounding (?) problem RPM related??

[Guest Anonymous]

Lately i've been having the old jumping temp guage problem. I've cleaned the grounds I can find, but I'm having trouble locating the grounds behind the dash. In McCartney's book he says there's one behind the glove box, but thats a right hand drive, so I'm wondering where that is on LHD -- (can't see it behind the glove box)

I had fixed it before by cleaning the grounds where my battery cut off switch is -- but now get this, when I get over 5k RPM my whole dash 'pops' and the headlights lights dim, sterio goes out and so on, and then it all comes back on once i back off or make a shift.

I repeated this a lot driving home the other night and it's doing that pretty much every time. So now i'm wondering if it's related to the petronix?? or the coil? or hmm.. i dono.

Next time I dive into the electrics it'd be good to have a strategy

thanks

-z

[Guest Anonymous]

1. Make sure both battery grounds are clean, tight and not corroded. One strap goes to the body, the other to the engine. They corrode and fray, then problems start.

2. make sure the plug on the back of the alternator is firmly seated in its socket and the wires aren't worn or fried. There's supposed to be a wire bail that holds the plug in place; it's often missing. Also there's a brown ground wire running from the alternator frame to the engine--the alt doesn't ground reliably thru its rubber mounts.

3. To properly ground your temp and gas gauges, remove the cluster and make a Y shaped ground wire. Fasten the two short legs of the Y to two of the gauge mountings (1 for gas, 1 for temp), then run the long leg to a convenient ground behind the instrument cluster. If you can't find one, drill a small hole in the sheet metal that the cluster fastens thru, and run a sheet metal screw into the hole. Fasten the wire to the screw with a ring terminal.

Happy grounding

Mike

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)