Car Rust Neg vs. Pos Chassis

You're four days late.

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

Yes, it is true. But the reason was not so much the positive ground, but the fact that those cars ran so poorly and were broken down so much that they never got out to be exposed to rust causing conditions...

The phone company does + earths for that reason.

How it got carried into cars, I dont't know.

Steve

As I recall, it did not seem to help my 1955 Ford much... John Ferrell W8CCW

If you make the exposed wires positive and add a little salt water the wire is eaten away. If you make the chassis positive, the chassis is eaten way right near the exposed wire. It only applies to a little bit of the iron not the whole car.

Here in the US the wires are insulated with plastic and the connectors are usually placed where the rain etc doesn't get to them. This means that the problem doesn't appear.

It is the differences between the metals used in making the chassis that really matters. This is how Ford made it so that on whole production runs of cars, the same spots rusted out.

On cars made in England, the oil leaking out of the engine coats all the chassis to protect it. The LooCuss electrics failed so often that people took every idea they could to try to prevent troubles. (Short of changing to someone else's parts that is) This may be the reason that the pos chassis wiring is used.

You're right. The junk yards were full of rusted out 6 V Positive ground junkers when I was a kid. For a while there was a good market for 6 V to 12 V converters to put newer radios into old junk 6V cars.

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

Actually it was to reduce corrosion at the subs's back in the day when they used ground returns for the voice lines, easier to replace a ground rod at the office than at all the subs. Also corrosion is different from oxidation which is what rust is, cathodic systems (going back to the OP's urban legend re. + ground) can suppress corrosion in something emersed in an electrolyte (i.e. salt water) but they won't stop rust.

H.

Don't you mean about 4 or 5 decades too late

My 74 Ford cortina was negative ground.

John G.

April Fool's day was the first. My reply was on the 5th.

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

Invoke the Sanity Clause!

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

This is a NO BRAINER...Aint no difference; use a _little_ sanity here...

Only if we can get Congress to do that!!!

I don't know but every time I get out of my new car I get zapped. Never happened before. Maybe the friction driving creates static electricity and this could potentially create rust? Oxidation has to be somewhere in the equation though and static electricity much less when the humidity is high.

Impossible, since they are mostly insane. :(

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

Yes they do

The static charge is caused by you sliding in/out over the seat not the motion of the car thru the air or over the road.

2 fixes: hold on to some metal part of the car before sliding on the seat; and spray the seat (lightly) with an anti-static fabric softener sold for laundry use. Art

Really? WHEN did congress ever invoke the SANITY CLAUSE?

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

...maybe right after they though t of repealing the law of gravity (that laet part is true).

They just didn't understand the gravity of the situation...

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Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'