The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Common ground wires?

I've searched here a little bit but didn't find what I was looking for, so here goes. I'm not getting a good ground on some of my tail lights, turn signals, etc. so some of them did work but now they don't. It made me wonder about using ground wires instead of using the body or chassis. Has anyone done that? How did it work? How did you figure the wire size needed?
Thanks!
Dale

yes
it has been yaked about quite a bit over the years.
just one of many...
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...;Main=71074&Number=513036#Post513036

kinda like this??
http://s67.photobucket.com/albums/h298/1951otter/?action=view&current=2650080-R2-008-2A.jpg
http://s67.photobucket.com/albums/h298/1951otter/?action=view&current=DSC00309.jpg
http://s67.photobucket.com/albums/h298/1951otter/?action=view&current=587685-R1-034-15A.jpg
i run::
Battery to frame
Cab to frame
Inner Fender to main frame because i have all my relays mounted on my inner fender.
Gas tank to main frame x two.
Bed to frame.
Radiator frame to main frame.
Engine to frame.
Roll pan to frame.
Drivers Inner fender to frame and radiator frame. i have a full bank of relays mounted on my inner fender which is also grounded to the inner fender.
and an extra 16ga. ground w/in the wire harness i made. all ground wires in my harness are green. I use a starr washer on all of my frame ground solderless connectors, most all of these body ground wires are 8-10 ga. braided gauge and coated for oxidation.

Ps. Stu knows me well enough now that yes i'm redundant, replaceable and especially wacked.

Dale,

Modern rigs usually have a wired ground system but I thinks it's because most everything is plastic. If you were a glutton for punishment I can't see any reason not to run separate wires for all the grounds. If all the light assembles and what-not are mounted on clean shiny metal, a separate ground system would be redundant...and sort of silly in my mind.

As far as wire size, because the device eats up some power to perform its function, I would thing a separate ground wire could substantially smaller than the supply side wire.

The mating contact between things like a taillight housing or a horn would have to be real cruddy for it not find ground.

I have not seen any threads in this forum that discussed this idea, but again, I haven't searched. Good for you for digging around first.

Stuart

It takes a supply path and a return path to supply any load. Therefore the size needs to be at least the minimum to supply that load. If you have a ground wire servicing two loads, it needs to be heavier then the two supply wires to do the job.

You should be able to use the frame of your truck as the "big ground bus". However, relying on a ground path from a light through sheet metal is folly. The easiest solution is to run a short ground wire from each light fixture to the frame.

Thanks for all of the responses! Looks like I need to add some ground straps between all of the major components and some short ground wires from the lights. Thanks again!
Dale