YESTERDAY I went to start my truck and the battery was completely dead. I cleaned terminals & checked resistance between P&N wires and got 1.5 ohms with key in off position and doors closed underhood light disconnected. A friend of mine gave me a jump and stupid me I trusted him to connect the cables correctly. I connected my side and he conected his side . I tried to start it and nothing happened i got out and found he had reveresed the cables
I got the truck started and then the gauges went backwards and it cut off. i started it again and disconnected the positive terminal from the batt. and it died so i figured the alt. is not putting out.Can anyone tell me what to expect to have to change because of the reversed cables.I will really appreciate any and all help from someone who knows what to expect or has expereinced this screw up themselves. Yuo can email me directly at onecat1dude@att.net

 

Firstly, when jumping a vehicle, connect the cables as follows:

Positive (donor) to Postive (recipient)
Negative (donor) to GROUND (recipient) This means the frame, engine block, wherever, but NOT CONNECTED TO THE BATTERY OF THE RECIPENT VEHICLE [:@]

Yes, sparks are pretty and for a great show any escaping hydrogen gas can explode and injury can result. The other reason to connect the cables as I stated is that the donor vehicle is acting in place of the starting circuit, so you keep the battery OUT of the loop.

 

never, never, never, never assume your buddy is doin the right thing. most of them will talk big and then when it comes down to it, they are retarted.

 

Dayum! Been there, done that, read the book, own the movie and even got a t-shirt out of that one. Ex-wife's best friend's husband was the biggest shiat-talker when it came to working on vehicles. I learned, soon enough, he's the biggest hack in the world who takes unnecessary short-cuts and talks just enough trash to confuse and befuddle whomever he's with.

Also note, when jumping a vehicle with POSITIVE ground (yes, they are out there), do as follows:

Negative (donor) to Negative (recipient)
Positive (donor) to GROUND (recipient) on the chassis, block, etc.


NEVER CROSS CONNECT, LIKE SOME PEOPLE DO, MEANING YOU NEVER, EVER CONNECT POSITIVE (DONOR) TO NEGATIVE (RECIPIENT) AND NEGATIVE (DONOR) TO POSITIVE (RECIPIENT).

 

Pretty sure that screws up the battery when you do that. But my experience with that was the donor vehicle was correct and the recipient was backwards. It smoked the recipents battery.

 

so far all i've gotten is a reaming from everyone but i guess none of you can anwser my question. I already know that i made a big mistake so now i need knowlege to help me correct what has happened.Please no more wasted comments, i'm hard enough on myself for being so stupid as to trust some one else with such a critical task as connecting two wires up correctly.

 

So what's the question? Is your truck starting or not?

 

um... no one is reaming you. [sm=violin.gif]

check your battery, its prolly cooked.

 

test the battery , alt , check fuses , check your PCM , since your reverse the charge hope you did not fry the PCM...

i would take it to a shop then have your friend pay for it...
... the old saying goes : IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE DOING , MAYBE YOU SHOUDNT BE DOING IT...

 

Onecat

Yeah, you need to check the Batt, Fuses, then wiring, finally PCM.

Electrical in a ride can be a pain when there is a problem.

Jeff