Battery cable grounds
- Thread starter JEEP GC
- Start date
Normally there is one on the block and one on the firewall, don't know for sure on the 1997 but the engine is rubber isolated and you definitely need a good solid ground to the body/frame.
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My 97 is an SE, but I will be working on it today so will see if I can find the same ground wire.
FWIW, I'm OCD about grounds. I re-did my Jeep's ground lashup with #2 wire - battery to block, block to firewall. THEN - I also added a #2 jumper across the RH motor mount to make damn sure the frame is tied in to the rest with a good low-impedance ground. I don't know the what/how/how many of the "official" frame ground tie-in may be; and I didn't want to find out the hard way, so I installed the jumper that cost about $5 and took 10 minutes to install. This is because my winch is hard grounded to the frame IN ADDITION TO the usual "back to the battery" negative return wire (also #2). This gives me a lower impedance ground return for the winch than a wire alone would do.
I don't think the frame is grounded electrically from the factory or used as a ground point at all. I didn't really dig into it but I wonder if it's for corrosion or something. All the connections I can think of have plastic or rubber isolation. If you randomly ground a fog light to the bumper on a stock TJ what is the ground path back to the battery? Is the current flowing through the steering column bearings or something?
'Xactly. That's why I added the jumper because I simply don't know. From an electrical standpoint, its better to run the winch ground through the frame - HOWEVER - from a potential reliability standpoint, the customary return wire all the way to the battery is preferable. I figured I could have the best of both worlds...