According to Henry Ford, who was positive ground until 1956, it made for much
better spark and longer plug life.
Michael Marr wrote:
> 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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