Grounding question for my rear battery setup

[rapieper at yahoo.com (Ron Pieper)]

--- GGehrke <ggehrke@gmail.com> wrote:

> So I'm about to finish planning my electrical system and start
> ordering parts and have a question about the grounding system...
> 
> I'm putting the battery in the rear...debating, though, whether I need to
> run a beefy ground cable along with it.  

No, use the car body.  I did (twice) and had ZERO problems. 

> I'm thinking as a bit of a compromise I might just ground the battery
> really well and run lighter gauge (8, probably) wire up to a distro
> block under the dash and then one up at the very front where the batt
> used to be, plus ground those blocks to the chassis.

Nope, that leaves you open to ground loops...not that they'd make a huge amount of difference on
these cars...but also consider if you ever lost your main (big) ground, you'd fry that little wire
the first time you keyed the starter.  Unlikely, but possible.

> Oh, and another crucial planning question - I am putting a master
> cutoff switch on the battery as well.  Should I put it in the positive
> or negative line?  

Negative.  I picked up a nice cutoff switch from a swap meet somewhere, it fits onto the battery
terminal and the cable fits to it.  It has a nice plastic knob to screw up or down to make/break
the connection.  

Also, FYI, here was my first attempt and it worked beautifully
http://scirocco.dhs.org/cheapassron/rear1.jpg

I used that location for the battery because I needed the spare tire.  The second time I did it I
put the battery in the spare tire well since that car isn't a driver.  

HTH

Cheapass Ron




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