connecting the negative ground wire

[Larry Jones]

I have a 1962 t-bird convertible.AS I was cleaning the battery posts I noticed the clamp on the negative side broke off. I ran my hand down to the engine and found it to be grounded to that. Also noticing there a silver cadium tab just hanging through the nagative cable not attache d to anything. Art says to attach it to the a frame rail. It appears it looks like it attaches somewhere around the battery tray. Any thoughs on that. Art showed me a picture where his raven black t-bird 1962 got attached to the back of his firewall. Any thoughs on this matter Larry

[AKastl]

To clear things up a bit, Larry sent me the pic below on his Neg. battery cable for his '62 convt. (which has an apparent metal loop support attached). His current Neg cable might be from a '63 (or later)? :



My '62 (late model) has no metal bracket support. The Neg battery cable attaches to the generator support arm (for ground) and another ground (engine to firewall) can be seen in the pic below (white arror points to ground wire):



Below is a pic of the Neg. battery cable attachment to the gen. support arm bracket on my original '62:



I think what Larry is really asking is it necessary to attach that metal loop (possibly to a bolt under the battery tray ?) or just reattach the cable to the Generator bracket and make sure he also has the setup for the engine to firewall ground and forget the support loop?

Also, I think some asked for a pic of Larry's '62 so I'm posting for him a pic he sent me to give everyone an idea of Larry's Tbird:



Regards,

Art

[KULTULZ]

To clear things up a bit, Larry sent me the pic below on his Neg. battery cable for his '62 convt. (which has an apparent metal loop support attached). His current Neg cable might be from a '63 (or later)? :

That is an aftermarket cable. He needs to buy (repros are available) the correct cable that will bolt-on properly. The attachmet point for the NEG BAT terminal is a cap screw in the block skirt under the generator (hard to replace-why found attached to anything handy).

My '62 (late model) has no metal bracket support. The Neg battery cable attaches to the generator support arm (for ground) and another ground (engine to firewall) can be seen in the pic below (white arror points to ground wire):



Below is a pic of the Neg. battery cable attachment to the gen. support arm bracket on my original '62:




Also, I think some asked for a pic of Larry's '62 so I'm posting for him a pic he sent me to give everyone an idea of Larry's Tbird:



Regards,

Art

You tell Larry I am starting to get really jealous of all these beautiful BIRDS...

Listen. The ground strap you have on your core support is not really doing anything. The BAT is grounded to the engine via the cable. The engine in turn is grounded (sometimes) via the engine mounts. The body is usually grounded to the engine with a strap cable from the engine to the firewall. One can guarantee a better engine to frame ground with a secondary ground strap but should be done in a fashion that does not show for origionality sake (say one short ground cable at one engine mount). This would insure good circuitry on an older chassis.

[Hawkrod]

snip The engine in turn is grounded (sometimes) via the engine mounts. snip

I have to note here that it would be very rare and unusual that an engine would be grounded through the isolator mount. up into the 70's Ford had not done it this way that I am aware of. The isolator does have metal on both sides but they are held together by rubber and there is no connection inside of them. Because these cars are unibody there is no seperate frame to ground, the firewall strap is the frame ground. Hawkrod

[KULTULZ]

Again we disagree, but I am not in the mood to argue the point. The firewall strap is to ground the body (and circuitry) whether unibody or body on frame.

Body mounts will ground (sometimes) as they have capscrews in them. Usually, an engine mount will ground through a mounting bolt. The insulator separating will of course prevent this. It is better to have good additional grounds rather than relying on OEM design (IMO).

Your mileage may vary...

[Alan H. Tast, AIA]

'62 Battery & Ground Cable Routing

See pages 7, 8 and 35 of the '62 T-bird Electrical Assembly Manual. Battery-to-Engine Ground is as shown in Art's photo to the back side of the upper generator bracket. Cable engineering number C1SF 14301-B suggests '61 and '62 used the same cable. There are no supporting loops or grounding tabs used with this cable. I suspect the loop shown on the picture of Larry's cable (which is an aftermarket replacement - the yellow-wired pigtail is a dead giveaway) was probably taken off of another cable, possibly the clamp that held the starter solenoid-to-starter cable at the back of the generator.

The starter solenoid-to-starter cable, engineering number C2SF 14431-B, used three support loops: the first one was bolted to the fender apron, on the ledge under the battery tray and forward of the shock/spring tower: this is shown on page 35 in View B. A second support loop was attached to the back side of the generator by the bolt that attached the generator back plate "ear" to the support bracket that's bolted to the side of the engine block, and was twisted 90-degrees to allow the cable to run horizontal back to the starter. A third loop was bolted into the side of the engine block to the rear of the engine mount.

Two diagrams exist showing these loops - the one on page 7 shows rubber insulators holding the cable in the center of of the loops bolted to the side of the block and to the fender apron, while the loop attaching the cable to the rear generator bracket does not appear to show an insulator; another illustration on page 9 for the "M"-series installation shows cable C1SF 14301-B what is either a nylon or an uninsulated metal cable clamp/retainer for the fender apron and the side of the block. No part numbers are given on the drawings for the cable retainers/clamps as they were considered part of the cable assembly.

The engine-to-firewall ground cable, engineering number FEV 14303-A, was held in place by the inboard bolt of the transmission kick-down swivel assembly - the other end of this cable (10-ga wire?) bolted to the firewall,which can be seen on page 35. It bolts to the firewall near the upper engine-to-firewall bumper/bracket that was used in '62. A separate detail showing its mounting to the engine can be found on page 8 in View E.