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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