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Vent: 13 hours of wiring work gone because of one bad ground strap
Last Thursday I finished a full harness swap on a 2007 Peterbilt at the shop in Tulsa. Everything tested fine on the bench, fired right up, drove it out. Next morning the customer calls, truck won't start and the dash smells like burnt plastic. I go out there and the main ground strap to the frame had corroded clean through near the transmission mount, I must have wiggled it loose during the install. We towed it back and I spent another 6 hours rechecking every circuit, only to find it was that strap all along. Anyone else had a tiny grounding issue turn a simple job into a full weekend disaster?
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gray_morgan1mo ago
Man thats brutal. I swear grounds are the gremlins of the whole electrical world, theyll make you chase your tail for days over a stupid little strap. Bet you were ready to burn the truck down by hour 10.
Something that small causing that much rework just feels personal, like the truck is messing with you on purpose. Ive had similar stuff bite me and now I just tap every ground bolt twice before I call it done, even the ones that look fine.
Hope the customer didnt give you too much grief over it, because sometimes all you can do is laugh and move on.
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sage_moore371mo ago
I was chasing a ground issue on an old F-150 once, spent a whole Saturday on it, turns out the bolt holding the tail light harness was painted over at the factory. I swear I checked that thing three times before I finally scraped the paint off with a pocket knife and it instantly worked. My buddy laughed his ass off when I told him, but he had the same thing happen on a boat trailer a month later, so now we call it getting Ford-painted. The customer was cool about it, just wanted to know if it was gonna happen again, I told em not unless they repaint the whole bed. Honestly, I think half of this job is just proving to yourself that you arent crazy, the truck really is trying to mess with you.
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