While tracing the brake indicator light I fell into the rabbit hole and found this wire just hanging out under my relay board. Noticed it when I took the cover off. Kind of funny that I have owned the car for a year and am only now starting to see these things. The po said there were a few "electrical gremlins" in the car. He was not kidding. Fortunately for me I am a licensed electrician and should be able to figure out these things. Wait, cars are nothing like what I work with for wires. Well, wires is wires I guess.
Anyone know and/or have a picture of where this wire is supposed to go? I am guessing somewhere on the relay board. FYI, the car is running okay, so this must just be extra (smile face).
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Looks like red wire. The factory always used brown for ground. Most likely left over from some previous repair or modification.

The color is off because of several repaint jobs. Not even sure what color it was originally.

Looks like a handyman special to me too. You have a rear window defroster which will have a single ground wire coming from its harness to that ground terminal which I think I can see in your picture. The rest of the ground wires should be bundled to a single terminal which I can also see. I think the mystery wire is extra like you guessed. Does the terminal on the other end look factory?

It looks like the wire is solid and not stranded.

Here's the schematic for the relay board. There are no ground wires connected to it. All wires to/from the the relay board are in the 2 connectors.

The only ground is pin 10 on the connector to the cabin.

It looks stranded but feels solid. It seems as old as the original wires. Yes, I do have a defrost window on the car. If people agree I am going to just remove this wire. Here are both ends if that helps any. Still have to wonder what it went to so long ago.
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Looks like somebody clipped a length from a factory ground and crimped their own ring terminal onto the clipped in. The free end looks like factory but the one bolted to the ground stud doesn't (although that might be just because of the overspray).

Has that car ever had carbs? One thought was that it was a ground to run the fuel pump following SirAndy's tip http://www.914world.com/specs/SirAndyCarbFuelPumpRelay.php, but if that were the case, the free end should have a spade rather than ring.

Good Point...

Maybe someone was using that piece of wire to jump the fuel pump connector to force the fuel pump to run.

There were never any seperate ground wires like that for the relay panel and I don't reall any other factory electrical that would account for that wire. The one end does look factory but I have terminal that look factory and a crimper the crimps them like factory, so it could have been done by teh PO.

What year and engine? The wiring change each year.

Jim

My car is a 73 and doesn't have that wire... don't know what year your car is. I have carbs and have a added ground wire to to turn on the factory fuel pump wiring.

My bet is that it isn't a factory wire and you can eliminate it. While you have it apart I would clean up that ground.

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Mine is also a 1973. Yes, will have to clean up that ground for sure.