Garage Wiring Question

[desert4wd]

Howdy,
I was doing some basic "routine" switch and outlet replacing in the garage and have apparently lost my presence of mind. The two images below are on the same wall about five feet apart.

I replaced the two switches (right), wire for wire and then scratched down a few notes for the outlets (left) but apparently I messed up somewhere, not paying enough attention to this extra wire which is connected between both boxes. I'm not sure what I should be doing with this wire.

With the outlets, I can complete the circuit with the hot and the other three wires, two white and one brownish.

Any logic and help would be appreciated- Thank you.

If this image isn't working here, try this flickr link: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2729/4407926076_7a87a95cd8_o.jpg

 

[mrb]

where are the grounding pigtails for those receptacles?

 

[rodnok1]

It almost looks like someone had one half of an outlet controlled by the switch. How many outlets did you take out and do you still have the old one. Check to see if the brass connectors are intact on the sides. It looks like you have one hot supplying both outlets and two different nuetrals... And yes where are the grounds, is the box grounded?

 

[mrb]

It almost looks like someone had one half of an outlet controlled by the switch. How many outlets did you take out and do you still have the old one. Check to see if the brass connectors are intact on the sides. It looks like you have one hot supplying both outlets and two different nuetrals... And yes where are the grounds, is the box grounded?

even if the box was grounded (which its not properly grounded) those arent self grounding receptacles so they would still need a jumper.

 

[desert4wd]

I must be getting senile a little early but cleaned up my act when I went back down to have another look at it. I'm aware of the grounding pig tails and have already taken care of that. The biggest error on my part was not connecting the neutral between the outlets. Pretty ridiculous IMO, but that's what I did. There was a lower voltage reading on the second outlet also and it just compounded things. Normally I'm pretty decent at wiring, getting the books out when I need them but I think the "spare" wire messed my thinking up. Anyhow, the situation looks good and I'm going to wrap things up. I think that getting away from it for a few minutes helped too. Thanks for your time and consideration with this.

 

[Dan0myte]

Your outlet on the left was a switched outlet. It only worked when the three way switch was turned on. The way you have it wired now, both outlets are now live all the time.

You can removed the small black jumper wire you made between the two outlets, then hook the brown/grey wire up to the hot side of the one outlet and it will go back to working the way it used to, or else the extra wire should be capped with a wire cap and just tucked back into the box. From you current design it is no longer needed.

 

[MrMark]

You realize you are missing a three way switch, don't you?

 

[marklandon]

You need to tie the neutrals on the outlets together or you have an open all the neutrals should be tied together

 

[desert4wd]

Thank you all for your input. I really played around with these wires too much yesterday and should have sat back a little earlier to analyze the whole picture.

I fixed the main problem which was the neutral connector. I won't try to explain how I missed that. I then connected to the outlet, the brownish "extra" wire which happened to be the hot for the two switches- the 3-way and 2-way. I corrected the previous 3-way wiring and it functioned correctly. (The second 3-way was not an issue. Anyways, it was a compilation of errors that threw me off I suppose. (See my previous post for more particulars)
Thanks again for your recommendations!