My stock exhaust took a crap yesterday. The welds to the flange of the stock axle back rusted through. Now as I was taking the muffler section off, I noticed that there was a ground wire (or something rather) clamped to one of the bolts on the flange. Unfortunately what ever it was connected to came off as it was dangling. Can anyone chime in on what this might be?

(Sorry, no pictures)

 

Hey I'm having the EXACT same issue as you are. The pipe that comes from the muffler and moves towards the front the car has rusted right at the first flange. My mechanic opened up the area to take a look to see what could be done and the same small ground wire just fell off. He had no idea what it was for and it only seemed to be connected on one end, the other end was just hanging...

How are you repairing your issue? My mechanic told me I basically have two choices either order a new muffler and midsection pipe OEM or aftermarket. Or take it to a professional muffler shop and see if they could create something to hold the two pipes back together.

 

when I had my new exhaust put on the installer said it was to keep noise out of the radio. there was no place to bolt it on the new exhaust and I don't listen to the radio so I left it hang

 

It is a electrical ground point. Probably a good idea to hook it up. You can use another wire if the stock mesh thing is worn out. I have it hooked up on my Stillen Gen2 cat-back in the same spot as the stock exhaust.

 

I just left mine hanging when I installed my aftermarket exhaust... been a few months and no problems what so ever. My radio and everything work fine

 

I installed an HKS exhaust on my car and on the original exhaust the ground wire was inbetween 2 nuts on the muffler connection to the B-Pipe. I put the wire in the same exact spot when I installed the new exhaust. I, on the other hand, have no idea what the wire actually does.

 

Busted mine off last time I was screwing around with my exhaust. I'll put it back eventually, but yeah, it's a ground wire of sorts. For radio, static electricity, who knows?

 

That's an electronic ground wire and should be connected just like the factory intended. I have Gordees 10 wire grounding kit and still have my copper exhaust ground connected.
Gary

 

The exhaust is isolated by rubber mounts from the rest of the car
The air moving through the exhaust can generate minor static charge in the exhaust pipe.

The ground strap dissipates the potential between the two.

It's not a huge deal, but a good idea to have it installed.

 

I just ordered my new cat-back. Aside from the fact I don't know what it's for. Further more, I don't know where it came from. When I was taking off my axle back section, it's point of origin was kinda impossible to find because it had snapped before. Also the wire itself wasn't more than 3-4 inches long. I want to connect it with fresh wire, I just don't know where it starts.

 

Any grounding point on the chassis will do.

 

except for the fact that it has a direct conduit back to the block by way of pipes cats headers. Yea there are gaskets along the way but everything is bolted together so I can't see how any isolation could occur.

I did hook mine back up today with a stainless 3" hose clamp around one of the pipes. Not because I thought it was an issue but I could hear it pinging off one of the mufflers as it flopped around.

 

My old Injen SES system came with a threaded stud and nut to re-connect that ground wire.

 

Does it eliminate radio noise, or could it reduce corrosion activity by nulling out the electrical influence at dissimilar metal areas such as welds?

 

It is there to eliminate corrosion that is caused by the build up of electrons through electrolysis and electricity flow through the engine. Same reasons engines have chassis grounds on them. Notice how people are saying they had to have there exhaust replaced because the exhaust rusted thorugh and found this wire broken? haha