Hey Fellas I Just Bought My First Shoebox .I Discharged The Battery Trying To Start It.when I Looked At The Battery,the Positvie Cable Was Connected To The Block And The Negative To The StarTer Relay.i Recharged The Battery. And It Started Right Up With The Positve Connected To The Block.but The Generater Isnt Charging.i Disconnected One Of The Cables And It Died.so I Connected The Positive Terminal To The Starter Relay And Neg. To The Block LIKE ANY CAR IS. .CAR Started Right Up But Still Not Charging.i Just Need To Know What Is The Correct Way For The Cables To Be Connected.the Car Is Still 6 Volts.iam Gonna Replace The Generater,but Need To Know The Correct WaY To Connect The Battery Cables,any Info Will Help,thanks..
Yep--all early Fords had a 6volt positive ground system.Neg cable to solenoid and Pos cable to frame (ground)...
I Left My Car Connected Positve To The Starter Solonoid,will It Cause Damage Even If Its Not Turned On?
It may run with the battery in "backwards", but it won't last - your coil will need to have the wires swapped around - not much more is required if you want negative ground. As for charging, check the contacts on your voltage regulator. Dirty/rusted contacts from sitting is the most common problem, but there's a few other things you can check if that's all OK
Connect a wire from the field terminal (at the generator or voltage regulator) to the body to ground it. If it charges now, your regulator is bad. If it doesn't charge, it's probably your generator.
starter motor, coil, lights, don't care about polarity, but generator, regulator do, so don't experiment. It was correct to start with, pos to ground. The reason for the gen not charging is not related to that. I see that others are exploring that so I'll digress.
Coil does also...while it will work, you'll eat the electrodes on your plugs. Generator & regulator don't care either - just polarize appropriately & you're good to go.
A little fun fact Yu can tell if an American car is Positive or Negitive ground by the way the Ignition key goes into the switch. Neg ground teeth down Pos ground teeth up.
If you genny is suspect it is probably worn or stuck brushes, and easy and inexpensive fix. If the regulator is suspect, you might take off the cover and give the points a good cleaning and filing. If you wanna cause some funny looks go to your local bubbl pack parts store and ask the kid behind the counter for a points file. The amps gauge don't care about polarity but if the wires are reversed it will show a discharge when it is actually charging. Easy test, with the ignition on and the engine off, step on the brake pedal and not which way the needle goes, it should show about a 3 to 5 amp discarge.
My '60 Plymouth has teeth up and is negative ground. In fact, I think most Mopars did until they came out with the two sided keys. Generally speaking, positive ground was only used on the 6V cars, Mopar had 6V through '55 (at least in the Dodge) Chevy was all 12V by '55, Ford changed over midyear. All of those cars were positive ground when they were 6V and negative ground when they were 12. I've never heard the key thing but it ain't true.
Don't think I'd use this guideline on 6 volt GMC trucks or Pontiacs ... I've never seen a + ground Chevrolet, at least not after 1929 ... 302
Buick would be an exception to that general trend. My '52 is 6 volt negative (and it's teeth down, if we're taking a pole). Any luck with that shoebox, lonley king?
yeah dont put a small block chev in it, the car is positive ground. the genarator is probally not charging. you can rebuild the generator with new brushes and reoiling it and bushings look for the kit at a original parts supplier. PLEASE DONT JUNK THE FLATHEAD IT WILL BE OK.
A completely drained battery can reverse polarity. An old trick was to short across the generator poles with a screwdriver to get it correctly polarized. Maybe someone else can explain it better.
I would strongly recommend not shorting anything. If you want to drain your battery, leave the lights on overnight. Shorting it generates a lot of heat which can warp the plates in the battery & cause internal failure/shorting...
As I said, coil don't care about (polarity). All coils have a 'power' (primary) side and a 'ground' (secondary) side. It depends on how they're marked. 'Power' comes from the ignition switch, the 'ground' side connects to the points. If a coil has a '+' terminal and a '-' terminal, the POWER connects to the +, whether the system is posative or negative ground, and the - connects to the points. If the coil has terminals marked 'batt' and 'grnd', or 'ign' and 'dist' or 'ign' and 'grnd', it's obvious.....
Shorting the posts on a voltage regulator to reverse polarity, if you have an ammeter. This procedure was used on a regular basis in the frozen north over the years that cars used generators. it's known as 'polarizing the charging circuit'. Generators put out DC current,with a positive side,and a negitive side. Alternators put out alternating current,switching between positive and negative. Shorting an alternator will blow out the diodes. If you have reverse polarity, any test that you use, or book specs for that car will be reversed, and you will be at a loss for diagnosis. If someone has a better way to reverse the polarity of a battery, you should listen to them.
Yep it will work. Technically, you're correct - the coil itself doesn't care. But as I said, you will eat your spark plugs quicker. The coil fires based on how the magnetic field collapses around it, when it's "charged" up "backwards" the spark goes from ground to the electrode instead of the other way around...the plugs will burn out quicker...you will eventually get misfiring. I've seen this on several 12V conversion...
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