Positive ground has me all bass ackwards..

I have to get a bunch of my cars running for the county bozos, and they are all 6v positive ground..

I dont have keys for some, so I am going to be jumpering things to get them to start. I just am having a hard time wrapping my brain around not running a + jumper to the coil to make it fire..or do you?

Can someone give me a put this here-that there breakdown on this.

Thanks.

 

i believe it's neg to neg.

 

Thats what I was thinking..but I put my remote starter switch to neg battery and to the starter solenoid= nothing.
Put it on the + side of the battery= starter goes.
All accessories such as lights, radios, work with battery hooked up pos ground.

This has been on 3 cars like this. But I can't get them to fire, and I don't want to fry anything.

 

Run the hot wire from the negative battery post, to the negative/minus side of the coil.

That's if the coil is installed correctly. The wire coming out of the distributor "should" be hooked to the + side on the coil on a positive ground car.

 

On the solenoid;.... some remote solenoids are a "ground activated" type, rather than working with a hot feed.

now your head will spin with all this sh...

 

I had an old Ford 9N tractor here until a while ago, it had the 6V pos ground system, I agree, it is a mind bender at times. To go around the key switch, run from the battery insulated terminal (in this case the negative) to the primary terminal of the coil opposite the distributor primary connection.

Whenever I am in doubt about an electrical jump, I use a jumper I made with an inline fuse in it, it has saved me several times, fuses are a lot easier to replace than wire.

And in the words of my old automotive electricity instructor, Mr Z. "remember that in every electrical wire there is a certain amount of smoke. Try not to let the smoke out as you can never get it back in"

 

This is correct and it confuses almost everybody, even after I drew a ford wiring diagram for my neighbor he still could not get it, just think backwards. the starter button grounds the solonoid.

 

this is true. they even make the same style solenoid in 12v. my '47 has it, that's why the push button on the dash only has 1 wire.

 

it's the same as household electrical, current flows from negative to positive. modern cars it flows from positive to negative. in positive ground autos, the negative post is hot. as f&j stated above, the the positive post on the coil should go to the distributor.

 

Uhh...actually it ALWAYS flows from negative to positive (unless you subscribe to electron hole theory). The term "hot" is misleading. This is irrelevant to the discussion at hand though...

The car doesn't care how it's wired up - a few things do though. Anything with an electrolytic capacitor, certain electric motors, etc.

If it helps you, you can wire them up negative ground, re-polarize the generator, and pretty much go as-is. You should reverse the coil, but it will run with the coil "backward".

For coils on positive ground systems, the coil should be wired with the "+" terminal toward the points and the "-" from the ignition switch.

If jumping a positive ground car with a battery, just put jumper cables on as you would any other car: + to + and - to -.

If hot-wiring a positive ground car, run a wire from the negative terminal of the battery to the ignition side of the coil (should be - )

Some starter relays are indeed ground activated - all early Ford stuff is, but I can't speak to any of the other early makes. Put a jumper from the small post to ground - if it engages, you're golden. If not, try putting a jumper from the negative side of the battery to the small terminal.

Don't think in terms of negative = ground or earth, it simply doesn't matter. In terms of electrical, ground simply = common.

 

Completely ignore the Ground, for a sec...

To make anything Electrical work you need a completed Circuit.

The only thing the Ground is, is a way to eliminate One Wire.

And the difference between Pos Ground and Neg Ground is which wire got eliminated.


Maybe looking at that way will help...

 

on my old Chrysler {+ ground system} when I hit the key, the negative side of the coil gets "hot". Soooo,I would go from negative to negative!
The only thing to keep positive is atitude!{just couldnt resist throwing that out there}

 

The term "hot" is very misleading - you're completing a circuit, nothing more.

 

At last, someone who understands it and explains it correctly.

 

Household power in Australia is AC meaning alternating current (effectively each wire changes from red to black at 50hz), cars are DC direct current, red positive and black negative. Surley the US is AC as well?

 

Yes it is. 115VAC, 60Hz

 

Thanks guys. I think you've straighted out my thought processes on this.


I'll give it a go tomorrow.

 

Simply put, the term HOT means it is opposite the ground. So pos gnd means the neg. is HOT. Neg gnd means pos is HOT.

 

Half our battle in explaining anything is using accurate terminology that everyone understands and agrees on.

The slang term "hot" does not fall into this cateogry of words...and neither does ground, really.

 

I agree with your statement to a degree, but the word "everyone" will never happen, as even repair manuals refer to GROUND. The term HOT is slang IMO, but some people still refer to the opposite of ground to be hot.

I myself ( being an EE) understand electricity, but trying to convince others to follow proper terminology will never be a task that can be totally accomplished.

 

It's sematics.

If you hook a wire to the + post of a battery and scratch the other end of the wire to the - post, it sparks. (hot?) Conversly, if you hook a wire to the - post of a battery and scratch the + post it sparks. (hot?) So you see, 'hot' don't describe either side of polarity.

The only difference is which post of the battery is connected to the frame(ground) of the car and which is connected to the common(batt) terminal to the accessory. Ground? Well, it has to have a name.

Jump from the common(batt) terminal of the battery(the one that's not hooked up to the frame) and run it to the common terminal of the coil.

OEM coils had the terminals marked "Bat" and "Grd". Some aftermarket coils will have terminals marked differently. Simply look at the wire going from the coil to the distributor as the ground terminal and the other one as the common. Works every time.

 

Ground is an old term that hangs around out of cultural inertia and force of habit. My opinion only.

Yes, but if we can keep confusing slang out of it, it does go a long way.

So, do you subscribe to electron theory or hole theory?

 

Pos -> Neg

 

Or in England, Earth=ground.

 

So you subscribe to hole theory...

Which is the origin of the word...and why I believe it to be "old"

 

Guess that is what it is called, all I know is that a diode shows the funnel as being pos to neg. (That is except for zener diodes, which behave as a regular diode one way, the other they avalanche at designated voltage.)

I know one thing, there sure are alot of threads regarding electrical issues on the HAMB!

 

Yes, but the current flow across a diode is against the funnel...