Victory Six ground question???

[Guest Richard Blaisdell]

I have a 29 Victory Six that currently has the battery installed with a negative ground. It seems to be running fine this way but I'm not sure it is charging properly. I have heard that this is incorrect but that the car will run anyway. Can anyone verify this?

[Guest 1930]

I am pretty sure that your car is supposed to be a pos. ground. 29/30 DA are that way. I guess it can mess up your gauges possibly, think I have read that before in the past here. Dont know that to be true myself

[Guest elmo39]

check your ammeter, if its, showing a charge while it is running , it,s hooked up the right way . that doesn,t mean that that is the way it was origonaly wired , just that some one could have changed it from pos -ground to neg- ground

[Guest elmo39]

i,ll add to that, there are only two guages on the Victory six that are electrical , the fuel guage that will work fine either way , the ammmeter that will work either way , with no problems except that if you want it to show the charge the wires should be reversed to suit , but if you forget to do that , it won,t harm the guage , it will just show a discharge if it,s hooked up the wrong way . also if your car is fitted with a clock which was an option , the wires on the back should be reversed , for which ever way the car is wired up

[Guest Richard Blaisdell]

Elmo

I guess what you are saying is that it really does'nt matter as long as the ammeter and clock wires are reversed. Will the charging system work either way? wouldn't the generator want to "motor"if it was reversed??

[Guest DodgeKCL]

(A generator will always motor if 6 or 12 volts is connected to it. It's actually one of the tests in the specs. They usually draw about 7 amps when motoring.)

When the battery is turned around the generator has to be repolarized to accept that new polarity of ground. The old d.c. generators will work both ways as long as they have have the 'new' voltage momentarily touched to their output leads to set the 'block of steel' to the new polarity. Otherwise it will start up in the old polarity and it gets really ugly if that happens.

Someone must of reset it's polarity otherwise you would have noticed the smoke and flames coming from the generator around the brushes. But in that year it should be positive ground.

As the guys say everything will work OK,if rewired, except the ignition coil. It was wound in a direction to make the polarity on the spark plugs negative on their center electrode and positive on the grounded one. If the opposite battery polarity is used the spark will have to leave the cold grounded electrode and jump to the center electrode and consequently the spark is much diminished. It has something to do with what's called 'thermionic emission'. Translated it means 'ions like to emit from a hot thermal surface'. The spark is still there,as you already know, but the engine is not running the way it was designed and your gas mileage will be less. You will get more crankcase oil dilution from the unburnt gasoline. The plugs will foul earlier. The engine will be hard to start under some conditions.

I believe the coils in those cars have only one lead coming out from them? The old theft preventative thing. If so you will have to go back to positive ground to get back to the factory spark strength. There's no other way.

Just remember when you do to 'flash' a lead from the battery's high side to the generator's output lead before starting the engine to reset the polarization.

Edited July 29, 2009 by DodgeKCL (see edit history)

[Guest Richard Blaisdell]

Thanks for the info I will do as instructed and post my results

[Guest Richard Blaisdell]

I did as suggested and the car seems to crank and start a lot easier the ammeter shows charge when the rpms are increased. all things electrical seem to be working. I don't know about the gas guage as the needle is missing.