Looks like I have to make some ground wires! Haha.
I don't have one going to the head.
That could explain the stereo whine.

 

Would the lack of ground no. 4 cause the injectors not to fire? I have no power going to my injectors and I am trying to figure out why. The truck is not at my house but I think I need to check that ground.

 

I know this is an old thread but I just found it again and wanted to remind everyone how awesome it was....

 

Kind of curious if my issue with my truck is related to the grounds.

When hooked up to battery in my truck the battery drops to 10v when the battery isnt hooked up it reads 12.5 volts. if i hook the leads straight to a battery into another vehicle the truck starts adn runs fine but it wont on its own battery. the battery is brand new and i teven swapped it with another brand new battery. any thoughts?

 

awesome thread, thank you to OP. can anyone tell me where , on the number one ground.

umm, the wire splits off, one end grounds under compressor, where does the other end go 'by the starter?"

help! thanks!

 

Thank you so much!! This helps a lot

 

sweet write-up....re-doing all of my grounding wires is next on my list....

 

This write up was very helpful to me. Thanks again.

Just a note -- put an ohmmeter between your negative terminal and multiple areas on the body, block, head, etc. All places should read very low, close to zero. Mine had 2 ohms and it was causing issues.

 

you werent lying about 4 being the most commonly overlooked, this guy certainly did . Amazing write up, couldnt thank you enough

 

Wow, I never realized how ghetto the wiring in my truck really was... well maybe just a little. But I am going to redo all my grounds. Thanks for the clear pics OP!

 

I purchased a 91 22RE and though the check engine light never came on I decided to check to see if any codes had been thrown. I did a reset to clear any old codes being stored and drove it around to see what was current. Sure enough I had two codes being thrown. One of them was #43 = No starter signal to ECM.

I decided to check out all the power and ground wires first since they are normally obvious and low cost. Besides, there were a couple of connections the previous owner made that I didn't like the looks of.
I found ground strap #3 was broken in two pieces so I replaced that wire and reset the computer. It got rid of code #43 and the engine now turns over fewer times before it starts.

This thread has me thinking if the system was that dependent on that one wire perhaps there's another I'm missing. Guess I should investigate further.

 

i have a 1985 4runner and I don't have the #1 ground. My battery is just connected to the body with the negative terminal and then that has a wire that goes and bolt to the fender and then another wire that connects to the block.

Should I wire the negative terminal directly to the block? so confused

 

Just re-did all the grounds... all but #4. I can not find the 2 wires that are supposed to lead out of the wiring harness (seriously, I don't know how this truck has been running for so many years with this rats nest of a wiring job.) Does anyone know where those are supposed to connect to so I can bypass the wiring harness and just run a few new ground wires? My Haynes manual is back in Colorado.

 

Sure, why not? Really, what you have is fine. It's just a few more points of failure. In general, body connections are considered secondary and prone to failure from corrosion. That's why they connect directly to the block. I'd recommend you make the connection.

This ground point is basically the star ground for several sensors. Knock sensor shield ties here, O2 sensor shield(s) as well as signal ground, VAFM ground, diag connector ground and then back to the ECM. I have no idea how you're not getting codes without this connection being made somewhere. Perhaps they just put it back on in a strange place?

Edit - It's actually the idle switch ground in the VAFM, not the actual volume signal ground.

 

What? Your battery isn't connected directly to the block with the normal 6awg battery cable? If it's not connected like that do it asap. Your starter depends on it greatly to complete the circuit. With it connected one place then ran to the starter I'd imagine the starter isn't getting full voltage.

 

Depending on the size of the cable the way it is hooked up is just fine.

Now if the cable is under sized Like These years were from new it could be a problem.

It does allow for another spot to corrode but nothing to get excited about as we have seen worse.

Wired like this is not my first choice and might have been done because the correct parts could not be had when needed then never fixed the correct way because it worked..

Not really all that different then running a ground distribution bar.

 

What you just said and what I've regularly seen on this site are why I recommend getting it hooked directly to the block.

Seems not many take care of their tiny battery cables and grounds then wonder why they have problems.

 

I don't think that any of those systems are getting much of any signal right now... I hope it will start up once I find those wires and pin them to the ground.
If all those systems are tied to that ground, I would think they should have a common junction before it goes in to the harness and out to the ground point. Does anyone know where that junction is so I can put a new wire in?

 

I'm curious as well so I can repair this circuit. Would it help to just run a new ground from the intake manifold straight to the body?

 

You can never have enough grounds, that's my theory. The only exception is in audio systems and radios where it can create a ground loop causing noise.