V1 Question about headlight harness grounds

[devianteng]

So in the wiring harness guide part 5, starting around 4:30 in the video (after unwrapping the headlight harness), we do a few things. cut the windshield washer connector (remove the orange wire, leave the black/ground wire), clean up the purple DRL loop if bad (mine was pretty crunchy so I redid that). Then we cut the black/ground wire from the headlight connector nearest the multi-connector, which is the driver side. Then we cut the black/ground wire from the horn connector (leaving about 6 inches of black wire on the connector end).
Next step is to start taping the ground lug near the multi-plug, then tape up the wires coming from the multi-plug. Then we extend the ground wires with 48" extensions. The problem I'm having is I have only cut 3 grounds (windshield washer connector, driver headlight connector, and horn connector), but in the video he's extending 4 black wires.

Here's a picture from the video showing 4 cut black wires, after trimming them to the same length. I only have 3.


On the harness, I still have the driver fog light, passenger headlight, and passenger fog light all with grounds still attached and uncut. Am I supposed to cut/extend the ground from the driver fog light connector as well? Am I supposed to only have 3 grounds to extend with a 2007 SS/SC donor?

 

[Gtstorey]

You don't have to worry a lot about having the correct number of grounds for lights. It's easy enough to just ground the lights as an add on as you start wiring the car. Run out of grounds, just run a wire to the nearest grounding lug (Or frame attachment point or negative terminal on battery).

 

[devianteng]

You don't have to worry a lot about having the correct number of grounds for lights. It's easy enough to just ground the lights as an add on as you start wiring the car. Run out of grounds, just run a wire to the nearest grounding lug (Or frame attachment point or negative terminal on battery).

Sure, I get that but I want to minimize the number of "extra" things to do with the harness as I start building. It would be easy enough to cut/extend all the grounds on the headlight harness, tying them all into a single existing ground lug. Ultimately I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something since that specific video has me cut 3 grounds, but yet they have 4 to extend in their video. But it's a ground...as long as it's grounded somewhere, it will obviously be find.

 

[r3drckt]

Correct, if there is a black wire in your loom anywhere, ensure it goes to a grounding lug. Even if it’s not connected to anything else and just wasn’t pulled from the harness, ensure it’s tied to a ground lug. I gave my entire harness a look over for black wires before I taped everything up.

 

[Gtstorey]

The problem with asking about specific questions about the wiring harnesses is that unless someone just completed that step in their build, its hard to remember after the fact exactly what went was done. At least I don't remember those type of particular things. Lonny can usually answer the particulars though.

 

[Lonny]

Cut the grounds from the fog lamp connectors.
You need at least three grounds headed toward the back. One for each tail light and one for the license plate light.

Some donors have other small ground wires coming from the fuse box plugs. Make sure that all black wires get hooked to a copper lug so it will eventually get grounded.

 

[devianteng]

Cut the grounds from the fog lamp connectors.
You need at least three grounds headed toward the back. One for each tail light and one for the license plate light.

Some donors have other small ground wires coming from the fuse box plugs. Make sure that all black wires get hooked to a copper lug so it will eventually get grounded.

Thanks Lonny, appreciate the confirmation. The harness is the one thing I want to get right the first time around so I'm trying as much time as I need.

 

[neodied]

Cut the grounds from the fog lamp connectors.
You need at least three grounds headed toward the back. One for each tail light and one for the license plate light.

I have 3 cut grounds like deviant (wash pump, headlight near multi plug, horn). If I cut the fog lamp grounds and extend them to make 5 grounds to the lug, should the purple fog lamp power wires be thinned? Left in as accessory power for whatever I want to add later?

1 - headlight
2 - horn (ground doesn't look cut in the pic bit it is)
3 - fog lamp (purple power wire)
4 - wash pump
5 - headlight
6 - fog lamp (purple power wire)
7 - other ground

 

[Gtstorey]

Fog light doesn't make a very good accessory power since the fog light control wire has to be grounded at each start and doesn't have power when the high beams are on. You can jump the relay to make it work, but as it is from the factory, I'm not sure that is good for much other than fog lights.

 

[neodied]

So rather than extending the grounds from the fog lamps, those could also be thinned with the purple wires? Sorry if my questions are stupid, I am really bad with electrical stuff...

 

[neodied]

I kept watching the videos, and in Harness video #7, steps 7&8 show extending the purple fog lamp wires for use as accessory power, so I guess that's what I will do just to stay in line with the instructions and not get too creative. And that means extending the black grounds that come off those connectors as well.

 

[Gtstorey]

Grounds wires are really non specific for the most part and can be considered generic in this context for connecting things back to the negative or ground side of the battery.

 

[devianteng]

I kept watching the videos, and in Harness video #7, steps 7&8 show extending the purple fog lamp wires for use as accessory power, so I guess that's what I will do just to stay in line with the instructions and not get too creative. And that means extending the black grounds that come off those connectors as well.

I didn't extend grounds for the for the purple (old) fog light/(new) accessory wires. Once you tape up the harness, you'll have 1 purple wire near the fuse box and other up near the dash connectors, and you'll zip ties those to the outside of the harness for later user. The videos won't have you extend a ground wire for them, but I suppose you definitely could.


I did have 1 extra ground on my ground lug, so I ended up zip tying it next to the purple wire up by the dash harness for future use. There is also a red/white wire left out of the harness that is power on key.