My car doen't have that strap hooked up and the battery doesn't drain at all. It is supposed to connect from the firewall to the top bolt that attaches the transmission to the engine. I would hook mine back up but I can't get the bolt loose.
Battery Dying After Engine Swap
- Thread starter 1984CuttySupreme
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I'm not saying that it will cause battery drain for every situation but, it will definitely make your charging system weaker than it should be.
IMO the battery ground should be hooked up in two places, the body, and the engine itself. Also, the engine should have that ground strap on it... If you don't hook the battery ground up to the engine, the current can travel through the engine to that little ground strap in the back. You have to think of electricity the correct way, electricity flows negative to positive.
There definitely needs to be a good ground to the body, I never challenged that. It just doesn't have an effect on the charging system itself.
I've had this problem in the past. Each time I just put my ammeter between the battery and the battery cable with the car turned off. You should only have a few milliamps for the clock running. However in my case one time there was about 1/4 amp draining. I pulled fuses one at a time until I got the ammeter to suddenly drop to zero. The fuse was for the radio. This is common, a radio will go bad and start draining much more energy than normal.
Another time I had a bad alternator, it would charge the engine when running, but then when the car was parked the alternator itself was draining the battery. That one was much harder to figure out. I found it as a last resort when I removed the wire from the back of the alternator when the car wasn't running, and got a spark. I put an amp meter in between and was getting about .4 amps into the alternator with the car off. The new alternator was fine, problem solved.
Have you tried pulling fuses yet to see which circuit is draining the battery?
Another time I had a bad alternator, it would charge the engine when running, but then when the car was parked the alternator itself was draining the battery. That one was much harder to figure out. I found it as a last resort when I removed the wire from the back of the alternator when the car wasn't running, and got a spark. I put an amp meter in between and was getting about .4 amps into the alternator with the car off. The new alternator was fine, problem solved.
Have you tried pulling fuses yet to see which circuit is draining the battery?
That's where you are wrong do a search on engine ground straps and you'll get 100 hits and do some reading before you say something that's not true. The electrical system in a car is all connected somehow or another, a bad ground or lack of one WILL cause the charging system to be weaker than it should be! Here is just one statement i found on the internet from a specialist.Doober said:
Here's another informative web site,,, read on! http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/zap/ I am supplying proof that an engine ground strap does effect the engines electrical charging system, where is your proof that it doesn't>>>?????
I see no proof of a ground strap affecting the charging system in that article. I don't need an article to see how an electrical system works. I've worked on them enough myself over the years and had enough education on the subject to know that a ground strap to the body has no effect whatsoever on a charging system. Try it yourself... disconnect every single ground from the body to the block, from the battery to the sheetmetal, and from the battery to the frame, leaving the only ground to the battery through the engine block. Nothing will work or light up inside the car, but it will still start and run. I guarantee you will still see the full voltage output from the alternator at the battery. If doing this and seeing it with your own two eyes isn't enough to convince you, then I'm through arguing the topic, because you won't get it. To argue this point as far as you have demonstrates your knowledge on how a charging system works.
I'll rephrase another way... maybe you'll catch on.
For a charging system to work on a typical car, you need a functioning alternator, something to energize the regulator inside the alternator (voltage source), a ground path from the alternator's body to the battery (through the engine block and through the negative battery cable[/i]), a positive cable that 99% of the time is run directly to the battery, and a running motor.
I'll rephrase another way... maybe you'll catch on.
For a charging system to work on a typical car, you need a functioning alternator, something to energize the regulator inside the alternator (voltage source), a ground path from the alternator's body to the battery (through the engine block and through the negative battery cable[/i]), a positive cable that 99% of the time is run directly to the battery, and a running motor.
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