I recently traded for a 1953 Mercury. I owned one that my father bought new previously. Had it from 1970 to 1991 so I'm kind of familiar with them. The other day I told my son to put the battery charger on my Merc. I told him to look where the neg. wire was hooked thinking it would flip him out. He said it hooked to the frame and I looked and he was right. I know this is supposed to be a pos. ground system. Can anybody give me an idea as to what someone has done. It's still a flathead and 6 volt. Lights work horn blows guages all work right. I'm stumped. Anybody got any ideas?
After hooking the battery up the way you want....pos or neg ground. I believe all you do is polarize the generator. Reversing the leads on the amp gauge may also be required.
You are running a reverse polarity system. Either by choice or by chance. Presumably the generator has been polarized to charge properly and the starter doesn't know the diference. The coil, if original, is now running reverse polarity also and will function almost fine until you start reaching higher revs and it will create a mysterious ignition malady. The light bulbs don't know the diference but the instruments will.
Most likely it was changed to negative ground six volt system. Everything is easy except for the radio and clock.
I don't know anything about it other than it was like this when I got it. I just know from experience that it is supposed to be 6 volt pos. ground. It just kind of confused me. I'll have to do some further investigation. It's been changed to a 8BA Ford engine. Did Ford use pos. ground?
usually the voltage regulator is marked positive or negative ground. If everything is working ok and it is charging id say it is ok. run the car put a volt meter on the battery and see if it is charging if it is all you have to do is switch the leads on the amp meter or if is a single wire just unhook it and run it through the loop the other way. Hope this help RED
What usually happens is that somebody buys a car and doesn't even know that there are Positive Ground cars out there so when the battery craters they install the new one Negative Ground and drive on. They probably never even noticed the Amp gauge read backwards and didn't expect the rdaio or clock to work forever anyway. Happens all the time.
^ Yep. Buddy of mine just bought a 29 coupe today that had the battery hooked up backwards. Dude didn't know the difference.
Be positive, put it back the way it was originally out of the factory. The voltage regulator might be toast, but re-polarize the generator and see if charges correctly. 53 Mercs are great cars, except for that damn fuel pump percolating from the engine heat and being up on the intake manifold. VAPOR LOCK!
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