Not quite.... positive and negative terminals for the battery are
different sizes... If they are still attached to the battery cables,
it will tell you how the car was grounded before.
Alan
On 7/15/11, BJ8 Healeys <sbyers at ec.rr.com> wrote:
> Without a battery in the car, you can't tell from the cables alone whether a
> conversion to negative ground was done or not. When I converted my BJ8 to
> negative ground, the cables stayed where they were. I just turned the
> battery around and connected the cables to opposite posts from the way they
> were for positive ground.
> I would assume that anyone who made the conversion to negative ground would
> do all of the steps, including switching the positive and negative
> connections at the ignition coil. Since you can't easily tell from the fuel
> pump, generator, or electronic tachometer if they've been
> converted/polarized/wired for positive or negative, the connections at the
> coil are the most reliably easy way to tell.
>
> Steve Byers
> HBJ8L/36666
> BJ8 Registry
> Havelock, NC USA
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: healeys-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:healeys-bounces at
> autox.team.net]
> On Behalf Of Alan Seigrist
> Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 3:11 AM
> To: Ron Ray
> Cc: healeys at autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: [Healeys] Grounding
>
> Ron -
>
> NEVER use the color of the cables as a guide on any old car, they are often
> black, red, brown, swapped, wrong. On most british cars of the era
> including the Austin Healey, both cables were black.
>
> You must chase down each terminal cable and see where it connects to the
> car. Once cable will always connect to the solenoid/starter, the other
> cable will connect to the chassis somewhere. Whichever terminal is
> connected to the chassis will tell you if it's negative or positive ground.
>
> Alan
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