Honda CRV Battery Grounds/ Points

[LazyDog]

I finally decided to removed the air box and look at the grounding points for the 2 skinny wires that Honda likes to use.
The skinny bolt attaches to cross brace in order to make better contact but not sure.

The whole thing is rusty and crusty green at the wires. This ground is at the trans, and the other skinny wire is at the fender (crusty green too).

How best to fix this darn thing:

1. Remove the whole wire brush if not clean install new cross plate.

2. Delete cross plate add an additional wire to other bolt straight to battery.

3. Delete skinny wires, install one much thicker wires at trans and fender.

 

[c502cid]

2 and 3 would be my choice.

 

[Chester11]

I actually just did number 1 on a CRV.

Hit the contact points with a bit of sandpaper, and coated them with spray silicone. (There was bare metal underneath the grounds).

 

[LazyDog]

Thanks to all for the ideas, I wonder why Honda uses such a thin wires.

 

[kschachn]

I'm not sure the wire gauge has much to do with corrosion here, that is exposed to road salt and you've got a at least three different metals connected together.

My old Honda had a similar problem. I cleaned everything up, added some corrosion inhibitor and put on a new ground cable and bolts I got from Honda.

 

[brianl703]

Thanks to all for the ideas, I wonder why Honda uses such a thin wires.

The thickness of the wire isn't a problem, but I wonder why they couldn't put some adhesive-lined heat shrink tubing over that.

 

[LazyDog]

The thickness of the wire isn't a problem, but I wonder why they couldn't put some adhesive-lined heat shrink tubing over that.

You know it probably saves money and in some cases you need to buy another cable (more cash).

 

[kschachn]

You know it probably saves money and in some cases you need to buy another cable (more cash).

Maybe, but for me after 25 years of service in Salt Land I wasn’t too offended on my old car. But I'm still not sure how the wire gauge is connected to the corrosion you posted.

 

[LazyDog]

Maybe, but for me after 25 years of service in Salt Land I wasn’t too offended on my old car. But I'm still not sure how the wire gauge is connected to the corrosion you posted.

In You Tube check a video under the big 3 upgrades. I hope this will answer your question.

 

[JHZR2]

I don’t know exactly what the cross plate is, but I’d personally unbolt the ground wire and the bracket that connects to it, clean underneath and between all points, and depending upon what the ground wire looks like, complexity of the run, and condition further up, I’d start cutting it back more and more, and splice in to a good location or do a full replacement. If full replacement I’d probably try to go with a slightly larger wire and round terminal, While I’m not sure it hurts to add more grounds, then you have more wires. Does the current flowing through this item justify more conductor? Could having a lower impedance path at this location mean more circulating currents from elsewhere?

 

[willbur]

I don’t know exactly what the cross plate is, but I’d personally unbolt the ground wire and the bracket that connects to it, clean underneath and between all points, and depending upon what the ground wire looks like, complexity of the run, and condition further up, I’d start cutting it back more and more, and splice in to a good location or do a full replacement. If full replacement I’d probably try to go with a slightly larger wire and round terminal, While I’m not sure it hurts to add more grounds, then you have more wires. Does the current flowing through this item justify more conductor? Could having a lower impedance path at this location mean more circulating currents from elsewhere?

Ground loops?

 

[JHZR2]

Ground loops?

Are you asking or telling?

I would assume that more ground cables would help keep everything at the same potential reducing the chance of ground loops.

 

[meep]

Seems like the star topology is the ideal for reducing loops, but that’s hard in a car. I’ve made a couple of trunk-and-branch ground harnesses over the years with varying results.

run the engine, turn on all the things, and measure the voltage difference between battery negative post and the alternator frame. Should be ideally less than .1 or .2 volts. I had a very clean chrysler minivan that showed 1.2. That was crazy. the jump from alternator frame to engine alone was like 0.3V. All said and done, it drove better and shifted better after a ground harness was made. I had another one of those vans, however, and it was totally different.