BoogieNights

I never heard of checking starters that way. Hmmm I might have to look that up.

mustangGT90210

Guess it works both ways, 'cause my parents have been doing it since they were 16 with negative first on, last off with no problems

2k7gtcs

On 7 I have used the nuts on top of the struts. Anything that looks like a good ground that would have a clear path back to the battery. I guess the fear is blowing up the battery. Although its safer to use a hood latch, strut nut, bolt on engine block, they all lead back to the negative side of the battery.

It really depends on the car I'm jumping. Some things look more metal than others and pop out at you when looking under the hood I guess.

BoogieNights

Too much for that lil peanut up there??

mustangGT90210

Technical data. In MCTC. Next thing you know pigs are gonna fly

Blue Notch

What peanut?

BoogieNights

No the reason why you do that is because with the computers in these cars nowadays jumping from battery to battery you run a big chance of frying the computer. My grandparetns had that happen and it wasnt a pretty bill to get it fixed.

2k7gtcs

It does work both ways. I think, and I'm just guessing, that the way I was taught is that you want to hook the positive ones on first to get them out of the way. That way if you drop one of the negative ends against the car it won't hurt anything because its a ground and the car is already grounded. But if you hook up both the negatives and then drop that last positive connection against the fender...sparks!

BoogieNights

As long as the positives arent hooked up then dropping it on the fender wont do anything but if one of them is then yeah sparky here I come.



Not trying to tell you that you are wrong Gary just saying my point of view on it.

mustangGT90210

What I've been taught is hook up the negative, then positive on 1 battery, then continue on and do the negative, then positive on the other

jerseygirl

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

2k7gtcs

I'm just saying you've got two hands. The two ends of the jumper cables I'm most worried about getting on the car without touching anything is the positive clamps. I take the one end of the positive clamp in my left hand and the the other in my right hand. I hook up the positive cable in my left hand and connect it to the good battery. Now I know no matter what I do I don't want that positive jumper cable in my right hand to touch anything but a positive battery terminal. At this point before I hook it up if it touches either body of either car...sparky. So I immediately hook it to the positive of the bad battery. Now no matter what I do I'm good as long as I keep the negative jumpers from touching the one little spot on top of the battery that can cause sparky. These things could be laying on the ground or across the engine at this point it won't matter. So I hook the negative up to the negative post on the good battery and then find a nice metal part under the hood to hook the other end to.

I don't think you could go wrong doing the negative first though. Obviously people have done that and everyones still walking around just fine.

It's just the way I do it. And I'm not saying doing negatives first is wrong. It's just different than the way I do it. And googling it just now, it looks like some people agree.

mustangGT90210

I hold the negative cable in one hand, then the 2 positives in the other, separated by 3 fingers and bending away from each other, with the 2nd ground just dangling. Hasn't failed me yet *knocks on wood*

2k7gtcs

I'm sorry that made me laugh a little. The way you went into detail about the three fingers separating. Like 2 fingers wasn't enough.

I think we've all done this before and its worked out for us so far.


I think we can agree to not put the negative cable on the bad battery and leave it at that. Find something else, like a hood latch, or a strut bolt nut, to hook it to so as to not fry the computer or explode the battery.

And I looked that up too. Dirk and I are both right. The idea is that hooking the negative jumper to the bad battery could cause a spark. The spark can fry an PCM, but it can also ignite fumes from the possibly bad and failing battery. FWIW

mustangGT90210

It all depends on the size of the handles
That's how I do it... I only hook to the battery posts

2k7gtcs

Well I am glad you admitted it. Now don't do that anymore. You may get lucky once or for years, but you could be the one guy that it actually snaps in the butt.

mustangGT90210

So in summary, on the dead vehicle in question, hook the negative cable directly to the frame? I've seen it hooked to the starter too, is that like the same idea?

2k7gtcs

Just find a nice piece of metal. It all leads to the same place. You could do like Dirk and use the hood latch. There's always some place. They used to say the engine block because there is usually a nice big ground wire going from teh battery to the engine block so that would be a nice return path.

The better and easier the path for the current to the negative side of the battery, the more amps you will be putting into bad battery from the good one. There will be less resistance of the current and you will get the maximum effect of the jump start. That's why going right to the top of the battery with all cables would be the most effective. Were it not for the problems involved with that.

Usually theres sonewhere on the fender under the hood on older cars where the all the negative wires in the car go to before the big cable goes to the battery. This would be one possibility. There's tons of places. I wouldn't do it to the starter because I wouldn't want to reach down there with a car running to pull it off of there.

Blue Notch

Who knew there was so much to talk about battery cables.

2k7gtcs

Right. Where's a mod to see all this?