Grounding issue on g16

[ecaldwell78]

I had a customer bring in a g16 with symptoms of no starting. After some testing I can get the cart to start running a jumper from the negative battery post to the valve cover, indicating a bad ground somewhere. That's the trick...somewhere. I'm not much of a Yamaha guy. Can someone give me a clue as to where the ground(s) are on this cart? I've looked at wiring diagrams. The large neg. cable goes to the SG. There's a smaller maybe 18 awg. wire coming off the main negative that I suspect may be the culprit. Without tearing all the loom out I cannot isolate this. Am I on the right track? Thanks all for any input!

[mr.ez]

there is a ground inside the box that solenoid is in,there is a 2wire white connector under the front of the engine with a blue wire and black wire.the black wire grounds under the engine just below the fan cover.blue wire goes to coil inside the cover.

[ecaldwell78]

I think I may have found it. There is a wire that comes off the back of the engine that runs all the way to the neg battery post. I think maybe the connection has been lost inside the motor. Is this the engine ground? Best way to replace? Oh BTW, I misspoke when I said it's a G16. It's a 2004 G22. I was going off memory.

[ecaldwell78]

Would I cause any damage if I just ran a new ground to either the engine or frame seeing as how it will turn over when I jumper from the battery to either? Seems like the easiest fix to get this cart back on the road.

[ecaldwell78]

**UPDATE** After checking every wire in the whole cart, I was still stumped. I couldn't, in good faith just run a new ground. Just not my style. So just when I was about to throw in the towel, my wife came out to visit and said, "Well honey, did you check the fuse?" To which I say, "Of course dear, that was the very first thing I checked." So she wanted me to humor her and just try a different one. I wanted to prove to her that the fuse in there was fine so I pulled it out and explained how it does look and how it would look if it was blown. To go a step further, I put a meter on it set to continuity and told her we would hear a beep indicating a good fuse. WHAT? NO BEEP? Scratching my head, I went ahead and put a new 10A fuse in and you guessed it. The cart fired right up! The very first thing I checked did indeed end up being the culprit. The fuse still does look fine. I wanted to update this post as a warning to everyone. Please, for your own sanity, before you spend 20 hours tracking down wiring to find a bad ground wire somewhere, put a meter on your good "looking" fuse. I certainly learned a valuable lesson the hard way. Just because a fuse looks good to the naked eye, doesn't mean it is.