Good question! Maybe it is to maintain 12 Volts supply to all accessories,
because the frame and body, being relatively massive, has relatively low
resistance when compared with a cable. Thus, the voltage drop would be in
the ground cable rather than in the supply cable. Does this make sense to
anybody? Dan Masters?
-----Original Message-----
From: Chip19474@aol.com <Chip19474@aol.com>
To: triumphs@autox.team.net <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Date: Tuesday, July 13, 1999 11:26 AM
Subject: The Origin of Positive Earth?
>
>Humble Listees:
>
>Yet another early morning automotive conversation before work with my
>comrades and another unresolved question.....this morning's dilemma is:
>
>Why was positive earth (ground) "used first" - later changed to negative
>grounding?
>
>My colleagues seem to think it had something to do with the fact that the
>earth is positively charged with respect to naturally balanced negatively
>charged clouds so why not comply with nature and make our cars normally
>positively charged. I figured that the decision had something to do with
>electron flow versus current flow for spark plugs.....it's better (that's
as
>scientific as I can be) to have a spark originating from the centre
electrode
>of a sparkplug to control the explosion blast which it would if you
believed
>that a spark starts from the negative side of 2 electrodes. 'Course, that
>argument doesn't hold up with today's neg grounding systems.
>
>So, maybe positive earth got it's start purely from coincidence.....the
>positive battery post of the first production car just happened to be close
>to the frame so the assembly crew connected it home!!
>
>Chip Krout
>'76 TR6 CF57822U (Being Reborn For Y2K)
>'70 Spit MkIII FDU78512L (Decent Driver)
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