No they are not. If a battery has gone dead it can be charged either way. If the battery was dead and the generaztor had lost it's residual magnetism and was polarized backwards, the terminal markings on the battery will be wrong, and the battery will not produce the full rated cranking capacity because the pos plates are charged neg, and the neg plates are charged pos, and the plate chemistry is different + to -
and particularly the POLARITY.
To get the battery back to normal you need to totally kill it first. Hook up a couple of headlights and leave the connected untill they don't even glow any more, then try with a small bulb like a tail light, and leave it connected untill it doesn't glow any more either - then connect the charger the right way and recharge it.
When the battery is properly recharged, reflash the generator to the proper polarity, reconnect the battery and restart the tractor. Make sure you follow the flash directions to the letter when repolarizing - someone sometime or another did not - resulting in the situation you now have.
There is a possibility the battery will be no good when you are done - but it is worth a try.
I've worked with lead acid batteries for 38 years and have never heard of one getting reversed polarity.
I do know that in one connects a battery to a generator however, it will simply re-polarize and work.
I'm wondering if the battery is somehow mislabeled?
If it's a positive ground vehicle, wouldn't the red charger clip go to the negative black batt terminal?
I've worked with lead acid batteries for 38 years and have never heard of one getting reversed polarity.
I do know that in one connects a battery to a generator however, it will simply re-polarize and work.
I'm wondering if the battery is somehow mislabeled?
Well, I've worked with batteries a little longer than that - and I've seen some strange things happen - particularly "down on the farm" (and yes, several of my years working with batteries were with a farm equipment dealer - and I worked on the farm for a few years prior to that!!!!)
No. Why would you think that?? It is the terminal that connects to the ground that changes between pos and neg ground - on a Pos ground vehicle, the red post goes to ground while on a neg ground vehicle the black post goes to ground.
Quite possible when the battery was totally dead sometime some "farmer" thought as you do, and connected the charger backwards - thereby reverse charging the battery - and that "reflashed" the generator to be a negative ground generator instead of positive.
No - you are totally mixed up and haven't a clue what you are talking about. The problem has been found. It was as I suspected - the battery was charged backwards and the generator was flashed to be neg ground - so when connecting the charger "correctly" it was actually connected backwards and was seen by the battery as a dead short.
Even though I never heard of a battery having reversed polarity I Googled and found that if a battery is totally discharged then reverse charged...the polarity can in fact reverse... so I learned something.
My feeling is that it's unlikely it was mis-marked at the factory
so I guess I'd discharge the battery , the properly charge it and see if it wills till hold a charge
SWINGING CONTEST! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .
Regardless of which is ground, the red clip goes to + red positive, and the black clip goes to - black negative.
I've been working with batteries for more than 8 years. Nyah, nyah to Philo and Clare.
I googled "12 volt battery has reversed polarity" (without the quotes) and got a lot of information. This seems to be more common than I thought. I never knew it could happen, or even thought it was possible. After the initial sparks, I was very puzzled. I double and triple chcked the connections and markings on battery. I put the charger on a board, thinking that maybe it's case was grounded. I removed one cable, then both, (going to the tractor), then got a different charger, which I first tested on another battery.
At this point, I walked away from the tractor, scratched my head, and spent a good hour trying to make sense of this. I even called a friend who is a auto mechanic, and he said he did not know what was going on, but asked me if I had a bad extension cord plugged into an outlet which was touching the tractor. I told him I was touching the tractor and would have known that quickly, not to mention the outlet I have is a GFI.
All of a sudden I began to think that "maybe..... somehow....." that battery had reversed it's polarity. I grabbed my VOM meter, and sure as shit, it was reversed. That's when I googled the (above).
This URL was real helpful.
Yep
38 years in the business and I never saw anything like that.Way back a million years ago I put the battery in my 53 Chevy backwards but the generator just repolarized.
The ammeter read backwards and the gas gauge pegged negatively but nothing was harmed
What a bunch of youngsters. ;-) Back in 1963, my dad had a TV repair shop. He did some work for a car repair shop. One day he fixed the blown output transistor on a car radio. This was when car radios still had tubes, but they had switched to one transistor in the audio output. Car guy bought it back...It's broke. Fixed it again. Car guy brought it back...IT'S BROKE!!! Fixed it again. This time Dad and I went over to the shop and measured the battery. Was charged backwards.
You can also reverse the polarity of a battery if it's close to completely discharged.
Tractors are rugged :) It certainly isn't optimal but there isn't that much that can go wrong on an old tractor. probably the only thing that's solid state is the rear axle. The ammeter, if it even has one, would read backwards. The capacitor in the distributor isn't electrolytic so it wouldn't care.
I dimly remember an old test where you would hold the point of a lead pencil between a spark plug wire and ground to see which way that was going but I don't know if that would even be noticeable on a tractor. The theory was the center electrode of the plug what physically hotter than the shell and you wanted the spark to jump from the center to the shell. Reverse the coil leads and it would go the other way.
I remember those old tube car radios with a power transistor output. I know that anything with transistors wont tolerate reversed power. It just burns up the transistor(s). Modern electronics that operate on batteries (Cell type, like AA AAA C D), generally have a diode or more to prevent burning up the device because it's too easy to put in batteries backwards.
If my tractor has a transistorized radio, or electronic ignition module, it/they would be fried now. But I dont have any of that.....
So it just repolarized by itself.... ???? That comes as a surprise. I'd think that something would overload and burn out, most likely the regulator or the wire going to the battery.
I wonder what would happen if I just reversed the leads on my battery? NO, I'M NOT GOING TO TRY IT!
Actually, I already got a Delco Alternator from an old junked truck sitting on my bench, and I talked to the guy at the machine shop about making me a bracket next week. This tractor is to be used, not shown for it's antique value. So I'm getting rid of that troublesome generator. I'll save the old generator. If I ever sell the tractor, it will go with it (if the buyer wants it). I'll just leave the regulator and it's wiring there, (and not used), and I'll run completely new wiring from the alternator to the "system".
I guess I will try to drain the battery and repolarize it. Although it still held a charge quite well, it's got some years on it, so if I have to replace it, I will. At this point, I'm more curious if I can repolarize it than anything else.
Very interesting
BTW: My '53 Chevy (3100 truck) had a radio that must have been put in later. It ran off a vibrator and reversed battery polarity did not matter
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