What does this wire go to?

My 96 5speed was stalling when I would hit bumps or hit the breaks hard. After shaking all of the connectors while it was running with no luck so I took the rubber mallet and started hitting all of the components and then to the wiring harness with it running. It stalled when I got to the connection that leads to the distributor. I removed the ground at the engine block and found this.


I know the wire belongs in that connector, but where does the other end of that lead? ECU?

I'm going to clean the connectors and reattach that and add some solder to all of those connectors to keep it in place.

~Alex

alex22 said:

My 96 5speed was stalling when I would hit bumps or hit the breaks hard. After shaking all of the connectors while it was running with no luck so I took the rubber mallet and started hitting all of the components and then to the wiring harness with it running. It stalled when I got to the connection that leads to the distributor. I removed the ground at the engine block and found this.

I know the wire belongs in that connector, but where does the other end of that lead? ECU?

I'm going to clean the connectors and reattach that and add some solder to all of those connectors to keep it in place.

~Alex

Click to expand...

i take it that it is too hard to trace the wire back to see where it provides ground? my guess would be to the pcm. find the pcm and run a continuity test on the ground leading to the pcm to see if thats the other end of the pcm ground.

could be a ground to just about anything and when it would wiggle loose, some component lost ground and shut the engine down.

According to my Haynes manual, BLK/TAN is:
* the ground for the starter relay.
* two of three grounds to the ECU (there are two BLK/TAN grounds and one BLK/WHT ground to the ECU.)
* the ground to the O2 sensor - that's a BLK/TAN too.

Based on the location (those are the grounds that connect to the block/oil dipstick tube right?) I am betting starter relay or O2 sensor.

kastein said:

According to my Haynes manual, BLK/TAN is:
* the ground for the starter relay.
* two of three grounds to the ECU (there are two BLK/TAN grounds and one BLK/WHT ground to the ECU.)
* the ground to the O2 sensor - that's a BLK/TAN too.

Based on the location (those are the grounds that connect to the block/oil dipstick tube right?) I am betting starter relay or O2 sensor.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure why an O2 sensor would cause the ignition to shut down, but if that's what the manual says then its gotta be what happened.

alex22 said:

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure why an O2 sensor would cause the ignition to shut down, but if that's what the manual says then its gotta be what happened.

Click to expand...

That was only 1 of the 3 possibilities i believe.

Go1lum is correct, though I really can't see the starter relay ground making the engine stop. The ECU losing one of its grounds could also definitely cause you severe issues, a lot of the time when there are multiple ground lines on an electronic module they are not connected internally and MUST all be grounded for proper operation. I can also see the O2 sensor ground causing it to have running issues, but only really during startup as I am pretty sure that's the heater ground not the signal ground. Still, ground it like you were going to and the issue should go away I think.

I crimped a new connector on, checked and cleaned all the rest of the clamps as well as the stud and block. Its been running perfect since then.