Bell Housing

[Paulus]

I have my starting battery ground to one of the bolts in the bell housing.  Reading the Catalina manual, they do not recommend this set up.  Any ideas why not.  It is bolted to the engine.
Paulus

[KWKloeber]

I have my starting battery ground to one of the bolts in the bell housing.  Reading the Catalina manual, they do not recommend this set up.  Any ideas why not.  It is bolted to the engine.
Paulus

You have a compressible gasket, and a connection that you want as tight as possible -- so potentially a conflict going on there (albeit a long shot.)
Additionally, (for obvious reasons) you want as good a connection as you can get, directly to where you need the high current flow.  The best is to have the battery negative cable right on a starter bolt

Recommend also - put a negative buss or a power post in the engine space - connect the harness negative wire, an alternator negative cable, any other negatives in the area (can eliminate long runs/loses back to the panel) and jumper from the starter bolt to the buss or power post.

Ken

[Ron Hill]

Paulis : Ken is correct.  Here's what I did:

When I installed my Hi-output (duel) and wired the 2 outputs directly from the alternator to the batteries, I also ran a #4 ground wire from the alternator to the common grounds of the batteries (wired in parallel)

A thought