I've had a no-start problem recently, which I finally guessed was a bad ground. Cleaning off the negative battery cable ground points helped, but there's still an occasional problem, so I poked around on the forum and found the (loooooong) threads about grounding the starter. I'll try that too.

The real question--I've had a weird tranny problem, like it goes in and out of O/D at freeway speeds. Seems like the kind of thing that might be caused by a bad ground. The grounding threads mention a transmission ground, but no one says much about it. Is there a ground point on the transmission iteslf that might need to be cleaned or re-grounded? Would that affect tranny performance?

 

if the problem you have starting it is it wont crank and then you keep doing it and it eventually cranks....replace your ignition switch. i did just mine on my g/f's automatic. it starts perfect everytime now without problems.

and the o/d problem. hey why not replace the ground, it couldnt hurt it. but when it does this, do you beat on it a lot? like accelerate a lot, brake, accelerate? because the tranny could go into this safety thing, forgot what its called, and the o/d light will flash.

 

I think you just find a bolt on the tranny and ground it to the negative battery terminal, hopefully Crazy97 will chime in.

 

XJ--My starting problem is that every once in a while the starter won't even turn over. My wife had it happen, so I started driving the car and got it too. Jiggling the key didn't help, nor did putting it in N. The battery cables were tight, but when I pushed fairly hard on the negative, it started, so I figured maybe I had a ground problem. I cleaned off both ground points on the cable, and the problem went away, except for one time when it started after I put it in N. I replaced the ignition switch a couple years ago, so I don't think that's it. And the intermittent nature makes me think it's a ground problem. Of course, the problem with intermittent problems is you're never entirely sure you've fixed it...but the improvemnt after cleaning the cable gives me hope that grounding the starter might help too.

 

Forgot to add-- I really don't beat on the car, and I don't think my wife does either. I think you mean the Max equivalent of Safe Mode (I forgot what it's called too), but I don't think that's it. I think Safe Mode gives in a real performance hit in all gears. My problem is I'll be driving at freeway speeds, and ocassionally the RPMs will jump up to 3500, then drop back down. It only happens with light or no throttle, and if I turn off the OD, it goes up to 3500 and behaves itself. It's like a vacuum leak or a bad modulator, but I don't think this car uses vacuum to control the shift points.

 

There is really tiny ground on my 5spd that goes to the body. You could try buying some wire and connectors and just make your own grounds and add them in new locations while leaving your old ones in alone. How does you negitive cable look? They can get corroded bad under their jacket where you can't tell unless you really look closely. I have no idea what a bad ground will do to an auto. You could run a ground from the starter mounting bolt to the body or neg cable/terminal(that should also ground the tranny) and see what happens. Good luck.

 

I think my negative cable is OK. It had a little of the greenish copper film in the middle where the insulation is off for the mounting bracket, but the wire itself looked pretty solid. I'll try grounding the starter, and if I get another no-start I'll run a jumper from the negative terminal to the body. If it starts, I'll change the battery cable.

 

had my tranny rebuilt and the problem is worse!

 

Please start a new post.

tell us what is going on with your car.

so you had your transmission rebuilt and (which)
problem is worse.

we need more information before we can help you.

 

Are you using the OEM battery terminals? If so I would change them to the Heavy duty marine type and most of the battery/charging issues are solved. The reason being is the fact that the thin OEM battery terminal usually crack, lose their ability to provide a tight secure connection and results in charging or starting issues. I would start there first.