[Healeys] Fw: Grounding

[jerry adams]

Ron,

In my earlier message to you I told you about the difference in the
cables and 
coil that others have also mentioned.  However you can also tell +
or - ground 
by looking at the spark plugs, dist. points, elec. fuel pump
points and dist. 
cap and rotor.  The spark plug center electrode will "wear"
down on + ground 
cars and the electrode attached to the threaded part of the
pulg will "wear" on 
- ground cars.  You can also tell by the pitted side of
the points in the dist. 
and fuel pump and rotor and dist. cap but I don't
remember which is which on 
those now.

Jerry



----- Forwarded Message ----
From: BJ8 Healeys <sbyers at ec.rr.com>
To: healeys at autox.team.net
Sent: Fri,
July 15, 2011 6:39:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Grounding

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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