Positive Ground wiring situation
 

My friend bought a new 6 volt battery for his 51 Ford. I connected pos to pos and neg to neg. Everything seems to work alright but should I have done pos to neg and neg to pos???
Thank you,
GW

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Positive goes to ground and negative to the starter solenoid.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Positive post should go to chassis ground.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

What happens if I do NOT put the positive post to the chassis ground?

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Then you have reversed the current flow. This will work for some functions like lights, dash gauges, starter, etc. But it will not work correctly for the coil or the generator. It will reduce the coil output around 20%. Is there any reason to not connect it correctly?

If it has an external coil (can shaped coil) you can reverse the terminals so that it will function correctly, if you want it to run it reversed for some reason. Same with the generator, it can be setup to run with the reversed polarity.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Also the ammeter will read backwards.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Yes! Thanks Bob.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Thank you for answering....I'll just go change them and make it correct.
Just wondering what would happen because he does not live right by me. Now I can wait until I get back up there to his house.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

The way you first phrased that question makes it sound like you have it correct? You hooked his positive cable to the pos of battery, etc. Or what?

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

You may have problems with the radio.

Charlie Stephens

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Definitely not necessary to change the ammeter [emoji4].
I have just changed from negativ to positiv ground. You need the right voltage regulator. The new one can do both systems. Original Ford only work with positiv ground. I have killed 3 of them to get this information [emoji28].

Regards Thomas

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

Sorry to tell you this if you hooked it up in reverse you have probably destroyed the voltage regulator.Be prepared to replace it.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

I don't think anybody said he needs to change the ammeter.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

It is the direction that the current passes through the ammeter that matters, you have to reverse the direction.

Re: Positive Ground wiring situation
 

I mean the polarity of the ammeter.
Sorry for my English. I am from Germany. [emoji17]

Regards Thomas