Technical '57 Chevy 12 volt positive ground?

A customer brought a really clean '57 Chevy 2drht in where I work part time. He had not long gotten it from the son of the first owner. He brought it in to get some service work done and to have a newer radio installed. When we opened the hood we found it was 12 volt pos. ground. Looks like it was that way from the factory. Everything works fine. Starts, runs and charges just like it should. Have any of you guys ever run across this? Anyone know why it was done? Thanks, Gene.

 

never heard of such a thing.

 

Never heard of a positive ground tri-five.

 

Somebody along the way has connected the battery cables backwards.

Reminds me of an experience I had "back in the day" (mid '60s) when I was a tech in a small Ford dealership.

A fellow brought in his '59 Mercury and said the radio wasn't working. I took the radio out, we sent it in for repair, it came from the shop, I reinstalled it and it still didn't work.

Pulled it again and sent it back to the repair station. They sent it back and said it worked fine and did when they got it from us. I no longer remember how we figured it out, the terminals were correctly connected, but the battery had been charged with reverse polarity somewhere along the line. The radio would not work on reverse polarity. I fully discharged the battery, recharged it with the polarity corrected , and the radio worked....problem solved.

Sorting that out was was a real head scratcher for a young guy at the time.

Ray

 

I bet it has one of those fake battery covers to make it look like an original battery on backwards.

 

I know, I know. We were all scratching our heads. Looks to have a pretty new Interstate battery. Every thing looks right...just wrong.

 

Do you, by chance, live in a Stephen King novel?




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I bet it's one of those small block Chevy haters and they installed a flathead in that car !

Don

 

Switch the battery terminals and repolarize the generator

 

First thing I would do is put a meter on it, and see if polarity matches markings, or it was possible that it was ran plumb dead and charged back up the other way.

 

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I had a "rebuilt" car battery with the terminals backwards. I am not sure, what they do to rebuild a battery, maybe just drain the acid out and replace with fresh or what. I had one in a car, that came with the car, that would start the car "OK" the first time, but you had to drive it around awhile to recharge the battery. If you started the car and turn it off right away, it would not turn over the second time. The battery look clean and new, even had a tag on it, but the terminals were backwards and the starting issue got real old real quick.

 

You can't just switch the terminals and repolarize the generator. You have to completely discharge the battery , disconnect it from the car, charge it back up the correct way, reconnect it the correct way, repolarize the generator and then your good to go. Easiest way to discharge it is to turn the headlights on high and just leave it till the lights go out.

 

Some English mechanic must have thought it was an English vehicle, as they had positive ground 12v.

 

You never know.....I've seen people do it before. Either they weren't paying attention or just didn't know any better.