Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for January 12, 2023

Those are cables – the red one is positive.

You work at an auto parts store, Baldo, and you never learned positive and negative wiring? That’s unbelievable.

The black one

Try a Youtube Tutorial?

Are they installing a battery?

And this is the lad who will ‘restore’ a 64 Chevy by himself?

The one going to the starter motor, fuse block, and alternator is positive. The one going to bolts on the engine and frame is negative. VW has black wires going to positive and red going to negative.

The multimeter is your best friend when it comes to automotive electrics…

I’ve seen people assume red = positive, black = negative but the previous owner installed cables using the opposite colors.

At least he is thinking positively.

When the cables weren’t clearly marked, you USED to be able to trace them back to determine their polarity. If the car was new enough to be negative-ground, the cable you traced back to the engine block was negative. Try that nowadays – I dare you!

You’ve gotta accentuate the positive.

Better positive than negative.

Lately, on DC powered equipment, any color for either + or – ! No one follows the standard red +, black -. RV’s are even worse. If you ask for a wiring diagram, if there is one, they are wired by so many different techs they don’t follow the same map or color codes. Talk about frustrating!

Lot of older cars didn’t have colored battery cables. Just trace the cable back and the Negative will be bolted to the frame or other grounding point on the car.

Like someone said, a meter is useful here. If there’s no current flowing, testing for continuity between the chassis and the wire will give you a clue. And if current is flowing, you will know when you get a bright spark that you have the wrong negative wire!

how many other guys can proudly state that they’ve burned up a snowblower? i, oops, slipped with the wrench while trying to unhook the battery and the next thing i knew, my wife was screaming, get the fire extinguisher, you idiot! ☺

Check where the other end is connected, if it’s to the engine block or the car frame it’s negative, also if it’s black it’s probably negative. Red is usually power or positive.

My parents drilled into me, “positive to positive, negative to ground.” I had to insist on jumping to/from my own battery because so many men would forget to ground.