Positive to Negative Grounding

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Positive to Negative Grounding

Home > Discussion Forum > Mechanic's Corner (general)

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All Messages in Thread	Author	Date
Positive to Negative Grounding	George	5-6-01
My 1949 GMC PG-2904 has a positive ground generator. When I swapped the 426 Gas engine for a US Army 466 Multifuel (diesel) I retained the old positive ground setup and generator. I would like to go to a negative ground. What do I need to do? The bus has an electric speedometer, electric guages water temp, oil press, and a 12/24 VDC starter switch which I installed in order to use the 24VDC starter that came with the diesel engine. Is this just a matter of reversing the terminals at the battery and "polarizing" the voltage regulator? Do I have to reverse the polarity of the wires at the guage heads? I know that any "floating ground" electronic connections (radio, etc.) that I now have could be connected in a normal manner once the bus chassis is at a negative polarity. Thanks for any info available.
Re: Positive to Negative Grounding	Kent	5-7-01
My 1949 GMC PG-2904 has a positive ground generator. When I swapped the 426 Gas engine for a US Army 466 Multifuel (diesel) I retained the old positive ground setup and generator. I would like to go to a negative ground. What do I need to do? The bus has an electric speedometer, electric guages water temp, oil press, and a 12/24 VDC starter switch which I installed in order to use the 24VDC starter that came with the diesel engine. Is this just a matter of reversing the terminals at the battery and "polarizing" the voltage regulator? Do I have to reverse the polarity of the wires at the guage heads? I know that any "floating ground" electronic connections (radio, etc.) that I now have could be connected in a normal manner once the bus chassis is at a negative polarity. Thanks for any info available. As you suspect, there's more to it than swapping the battery cables around and repolarizing the generator armature, not the voltage regulator. Stick with what you have, a seperate system can be run from the battery to power "negative ground" accessories.
Re: Positive to Negative Grounding	George	5-12-01
My 1949 GMC PG-2904 has a positive ground generator. When I swapped the 426 Gas engine for a US Army 466 Multifuel (diesel) I retained the old positive ground setup and generator. I would like to go to a negative ground. What do I need to do? The bus has an electric speedometer, electric guages water temp, oil press, and a 12/24 VDC starter switch which I installed in order to use the 24VDC starter that came with the diesel engine. Is this just a matter of reversing the terminals at the battery and "polarizing" the voltage regulator? Do I have to reverse the polarity of the wires at the guage heads? I know that any "floating ground" electronic connections (radio, etc.) that I now have could be connected in a normal manner once the bus chassis is at a negative polarity. Thanks for any info available. As you suspect, there's more to it than swapping the battery cables around and repolarizing the generator armature, not the voltage regulator. Stick with what you have, a seperate system can be run from the battery to power "negative ground" accessories. Thanks for the advice, Kent. My problem with the positive ground is that I cannot find positive ground sending units (which are grounded through the chassis) for my water temp. and oil pressure guages, and the only complete systems (sending unit and guage) that I can find are negative ground units. It also simplifies everything if I elect to convert to an alternator from the 1949 vintage, 80 lb. low-output (60 amp) generator now on the bus. My floating, negative-ground stereo system's radio antenna has a tennis ball on it to keep it from shorting out against the chassis when it whips in the breeze. I've only blown one fuse so far. But the antenna looks a little wierd. Thanks again for any detailed procedure to make the switch from pos. to neg.
Re: Positive to Negative Grounding	Kent	5-13-01
My 1949 GMC PG-2904 has a positive ground generator. When I swapped the 426 Gas engine for a US Army 466 Multifuel (diesel) I retained the old positive ground setup and generator. I would like to go to a negative ground. What do I need to do? The bus has an electric speedometer, electric guages water temp, oil press, and a 12/24 VDC starter switch which I installed in order to use the 24VDC starter that came with the diesel engine. Is this just a matter of reversing the terminals at the battery and "polarizing" the voltage regulator? Do I have to reverse the polarity of the wires at the guage heads? I know that any "floating ground" electronic connections (radio, etc.) that I now have could be connected in a normal manner once the bus chassis is at a negative polarity. Thanks for any info available. As you suspect, there's more to it than swapping the battery cables around and repolarizing the generator armature, not the voltage regulator. Stick with what you have, a seperate system can be run from the battery to power "negative ground" accessories. Thanks for the advice, Kent. My problem with the positive ground is that I cannot find positive ground sending units (which are grounded through the chassis) for my water temp. and oil pressure guages, and the only complete systems (sending unit and guage) that I can find are negative ground units. It also simplifies everything if I elect to convert to an alternator from the 1949 vintage, 80 lb. low-output (60 amp) generator now on the bus. My floating, negative-ground stereo system's radio antenna has a tennis ball on it to keep it from shorting out against the chassis when it whips in the breeze. I've only blown one fuse so far. But the antenna looks a little wierd. Thanks again for any detailed procedure to make the switch from pos. to neg. The instrumentation was the only thing I was concerned about, in light of the fact that you're going to swap them out for negative ground gauges and senders and are going for an alternator, I see no problem in switching over.