Bad grounding ??

[FR33K]

My cars been playing games with me lately..

It is struggling to take a lot of load. When the radio is on, or when the air con is on, or when i wind up the window or push the brakes, my headlights flicker to the point that if you were driving in front of me you'd think i was flashing you..

and the whole combination of the above.. its a shocker

now its worse and sometimes while im driving.. the car would switch off for a split second and come back on.. id lose all power.. idle seems to also have dropped near stalling sometimes.

is this a bad ground ?? battery seems to be charging fine.. never had probs with it dying so i think the alternator should be fine too..

any idea ??

[jdmTYPE R]

get your alternated checked out...faulty alt can affect it to

[B18cEG]

I work at a car stereo shop and from experience i can almost certainly say that it is grounding fault, check around your headlight area in the engine bay where the lights have all there grounding points. about the near stalling that may be something different.

[55EXX]

have you tried upgrading the ground?

[FR33K]

havent tried anything yet.. wanted to start with what people would think the main issue would be first...

[omgzilla]

If you can borrow a multimeter check your charge rate.

If charge rate appears ok, try cleaning up your battery terminals and all power and grounding points.

I had this problem on my skyline. Turned out to be a dodgey old ground cable from the battery to the motor.

So, instead of buying a $100+ grounding kit, i made my own for about $30! I used 4g Cable from the battery terminal to a distribution block then ran 4x 8g cables to good earth points on the motor and chassis/body.

Sorted!

[Limbo]

just put some extra earths in, its not gonna do anything bad.

I used a few metres of audio power cable. Its cheaper than buying the grounding kits

[teh_mechanic]

your on the right track,check all grounds,tighten then and clean corrosion.if any of the wires look a bit dodge replace them with audio power cable

[FR33K]

when you say put some extra earths in... should i get a thicker cable from the battery

and also more earth points coming from the engine ??

where are the standard earth points usually ??

[teh_mechanic]

its a good idea to get a thicker cable from the battery,your main earth,cant hurt.more points to the engine wont help much.one 4 guage wire is the same as 2 smaller 8 guage wires if you get what i mean.but never the less run a 4 guage wire to the block and one to the gearbox eliminate that.some hondas have an earth at the coolant temperature sensor i think,im not sure where all the earths are.headlights have an earth.

[55EXX]

run 4ga to a distribution block that has at least 2 8ga outs run one to the rocker cover the other to the chassis where the old ground was. if you have more 8ga outs then do gearbox strut towers intake manifold above headlights any where you can get a clean contact and a bolt to hold it in