I remember Dad making a similar mistake when he installed a new battery in
his Ford Cortina. I guess he had never realized it was a positive ground!
Paul
OROC
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Avery <aavery@rica.net>
To: datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net <datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net>
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 5:08 PM
Subject: Oops! Mistake story
>As the last hurdle in getting SRL311-07278 back on the road, we needed a
>new battery. So my father and I drove down to the Autozone and lo and
>behold, they carried a battery that met the stock SRL311 specs. We left
>them the old battery, seeing as it wouldn't hold a charge worth a damn.
>
>Got back to the garage and put the new battery in--it was exactly the same
>size, etc. as the old one. I hooked up the positive battery lead first, no
>problem. But when I hooked up the negative battery lead, smoke immediately
>started pouring out from under the driver's side dash. I quickly unhooked
>the battery and inspected. One of the wires into the ignition switch tried
>to fry itself--it was still intact, but the insulation had started to melt.
>
>The smoking wire was not stock--some sort of "Bubba" wiring spliced into
>one of the stock ignition wires and fed back to the starter. Anyway,
>seeing as I hate electrical work and am horrible at it, I asked my mechanic
>(who only works on my cars when I've given up on a particular
>problem--which is too often, IMHO) to come a look at it. He came by the
>next evening and we looked at all the wiring. He told me that I must have
>a short and that I'd have to trace all the wires to find it.
>
>As he was looking at all of the other things I'd done to the car since he'd
>last seen it (new front brakes, rotors--cross-drilled/slotted, master
>cylinder, wheels, chrome, etc.) he said, "Alex, I know what your problem
>is." "What is it!" I asked. "You hooked the battery up backwards!"
>
>Doh! I hate to admit it, but because the new battery was the same size,
>etc. as the old battery, I hadn't paid any attention to the location of the
>(+) and (-) batttery terminals. I assumed they were the same, when they
>were actually reversed. Boy did I feel and look stupid to my mechanic.
>His last words (as he walked off shaking his head) "Alex, stop messing your
>cars up after I fix 'em."
>
>Humbled, Alex Avery
>SRL311-07278
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