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Old 10-19-2017, 06:17 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by SuperG View Post
Thank you to everybody that weighed in. Crawled around this afternoon and that red wire goes out the hole to left of pic and right onto frame of van. The white wire, the one I could trace at least, ground. So there ya go.
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Originally Posted by boywonder View Post
Wow.....So the red is ground, the blacks are (hopefully) positive, and at least one white is ground????

......If you are certain the red cable goes to the frame wrap black electrical tape around the cable...preferably over it's entire length. Same for the black cables if they are positive...wrap them in red tape.

That workmanship is just crazy......
Just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page here ----

SuperG, you're indeed saying that the red wire goes out the hole from the battery box location, and actually ATTACHES itself (with a bare end/wire terminal) to the metal frame of the van? Has actual electrical continuity to the frame?

>> Making sure you aren't instead saying (or meaning) that the red wire disappears INSIDE the frame of the van (with insulation still intact) and runs off to some other unknown point in the van? (Simply using the inside of the frame rail as a channel to run along, but not grounding itself to the frame rail.)

IMHO, it just seems increasingly statistically unlikely that the red wire in the photo would be a grounded-to-the-frame ground wire.
( For these reasons: )

1) It's red (I know, means nothing in this van apparently)
2) It looks way too short to reach across to the negative battery terminal on the right, which it would need to do if it truly were a ground wire.
3) Do we have ANY wires left that seem to be the positive hookup wire? Something needs to be the positive....and we're running out of positive-wire candidates, as the black and white wires seem to mostly be turning out to be ground wires....

Just attempting to clarify.

(by the way: This is one heck of a puzzle, lol...)

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Old 10-19-2017, 06:35 PM   #22
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look at the picture of the fuse box, it clearly has a black wire going to it. So I think it is safe to say that black is positive in this case, I would be kind and say that at least some of them had red heatshrink on the terminals, but I believe they are just 8 gauge(red) connectors. It is not uncommon for Sportsmobile to use white for ground. I suspect the red wire was a replacement.It could be worse I have seen some pictures with all three colors going to both post.

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Old 10-19-2017, 08:39 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by MountainBikeRoamer View Post
Just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page here ----

SuperG, you're indeed saying that the red wire goes out the hole from the battery box location, and actually ATTACHES itself (with a bare end/wire terminal) to the metal frame of the van? Has actual electrical continuity to the frame?

>> Making sure you aren't instead saying (or meaning) that the red wire disappears INSIDE the frame of the van (with insulation still intact) and runs off to some other unknown point in the van? (Simply using the inside of the frame rail as a channel to run along, but not grounding itself to the frame rail.)

IMHO, it just seems increasingly statistically unlikely that the red wire in the photo would be a grounded-to-the-frame ground wire.
( For these reasons: )

1) It's red (I know, means nothing in this van apparently)
2) It looks way too short to reach across to the negative battery terminal on the right, which it would need to do if it truly were a ground wire.
3) Do we have ANY wires left that seem to be the positive hookup wire? Something needs to be the positive....and we're running out of positive-wire candidates, as the black and white wires seem to mostly be turning out to be ground wires....

Just attempting to clarify.

(by the way: This is one heck of a puzzle, lol...)
Yes, I'll take a picture tomorrow to prove it.

The issue isn't so much stretching across to the other terminal. The issue is the battery originally sat in the van with the + terminal to the right. So all those black wires reach it easily and the 3 ground wires reach the negative easily.

But yes, the red wire leaves the negative terminal goes through that hole and mounts to the frame.

So, in short, the entire issue here (outside of me being stupid and not taking a picture) is:

1) I assumed red would be go to the positive terminal like any car battery I've ever hooked up.
2) White being ground in RVs and Black being hot.
3) That red wire not being white like the other two

I'm not the first person to wire an marine battery backwards (google it, plenty have done it), but certainly that red ground wire didn't help me any.
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Old 10-19-2017, 10:09 PM   #24
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So the original battery had the oposite orentation of the positive and negative terminals? Unless you can turn the new one around, you will have to lengthen the wires to go to the oposite side. If you can turn the battery around, since the wires are too short to reach anywhere but the correct terminals you can't go wrong with any but the white ones which are long enough to reach either side. As for Red being negative, that's just stupid. Who ever did that could have easily taped it black with some electrical tape. As for a blown fuse, once you get all the wires hooked up correctly, it will quickly be obvous which things work and which don't. If you find something that won't turn on, you can trace the positive wire from that item to find the fuse.
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