Re: Factory Ground Strap Connections

Posted by HH56 On 2020/2/3 10:22:52

Unlike the prewar conventional body cars which had a large ground strap between the transmission body and the frame, the single ground cable to the block appears to be all there was on postwar cars thru 54. Possibly that prewar strap was needed because with the underseat location of the battery, it's ground cable went to the frame as well. Postwar, the only other hard ground between the engine and body is a 14 ga wire between the generator case and fender which continues on to a screw on the regulator body or a regulator mounting screw and is used to provide a solid voltage reference between the regulator and generator.

There have been some reports of people finding an additional ground strap on postwar cars at the transmission but as you mention, it does not show on any documentation nor can I recall ever seeing one for myself. It is possible others have felt the body ground provided mostly by linkage and tubing was a bit precarious on postwar cars and added a strap akin to the prewar models. Something like that might be what the reports were seeing. Several owners of postwar cars have added their own small gauge ground straps between the engine and body to provide a better ground for lights. In 55-6 models Packard started placing a short factory (maybe 8 or 10ga) strap between the engine and body.