[TR] Pertinox Wiring and General Comment

[terryrs at comcast.net]

>Only problem is, that is NOT correct.  The harness wire should go to the
>positive coil terminal for negative ground, even when running points.  The
>coil is always connected according to the marked polarity, and since the
>points in the distributor connect to ground, the distributor wire should go
>to the coil terminal that matches the ground polarity.


Oh my my my my my.  I can be such a cannibal on Thanksgiving Day.

What I don't understand is, I took the wiring harness wire off the negative terminal and installed it on the positive terminal when I put the Petronix back in.  (By the way, that is the correct spelling????  Gadzooks!)

The thing is, the car ran fine with points with the harness wire on the negative terminal despite that the car is negative ground!  Should it have been running at all, or just with reduced power?  

Now, what I recall from my Navy electronics days (uhm, more than 3 decades ago), electrons flow from positive to negative, holes flow from negative to positive, and it is the difference in potential between the two that makes one "negative" as opposed to "positive."  In other words, a positive 20 volts will run to a positive 15 volts because the difference in potential is still a negative 5.

Lord, I can't believe I'm talking like this again.  Almost sounds like I know what I'm doing.

Anyway, would there be something in that phenomenon that would allow the car to run when the harness wire was hooked to negative?

Am I scaring you, Randall, like as in, where do I start to educate this clueless guy????  What the hay, you need a challenge!

Terry