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best way to check electrical grounds

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Old 03-13-2008, 11:09 PM
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Default best way to check electrical grounds

whats the best way to check your grounds?
Old 03-14-2008, 05:27 AM
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Default Re: best way to check electrical grounds (vw eater)

With a digital multimeter. You can put it on the ohm setting and put a lead from the ring terminal to the adjacent body panel. If you see anything over .1 ohms, it's a bad ground. Check each end of the ground wire as there's potential to have the continuity bad at either end.

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Old 03-14-2008, 10:55 AM
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thanks
Old 03-14-2008, 01:01 PM
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Good info to know!
Old 03-14-2008, 01:45 PM
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mmmmm, not really.

the best way to check them is to use volts.
With the car running, switch on everything that you can that pulls power and read the voltage from the general grounding point you're testing to the battery's negative terminal.
This will tell you how much you're loosing. (<.5V and everything is great. >1V something is really wrong)
Locate the ground that should be servicing that connection and go from there.

Ohms, while an ok method of testing it, will really depend on the quality of the meter. Plus at that low of a reading, the quality of the connection to the part you're touching and the resistance of the multimeter leads/probes is super critical.
Old 03-14-2008, 02:02 PM
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What if you are looking to find the best grounding spots, instead of seeing if you have a good ground.
Old 03-14-2008, 02:25 PM
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Ideally, the best ground spot is where you have the best connection to the negative battery terminal with the shortest possible wire.
Typically the chassis is grounded very well, so pick something large and metal, clean off the paint and connect to it.
Old 03-16-2008, 11:46 AM
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thanks
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