Hello All,
I've been a long time fan of this forum, and have been slowly restoring a 1971 40 I purchased last year with the help of all the knowledgable folks on Mud! I've run into a dilemma this past weekend and was wondering if anyone out there can help, as I've been unable to find info about this via search:
I recently did a bunch of work on "Chuggy" over the winter, replacing leaky radiator, old fuel pump, etc., to include LED headlights (thanks to City Racer's site). Once I got everything buttoned up and went to start the truck, the battery was dead as a hammer, despite being on a trickle charger over the winter, being less than 6 months old, and testing okay for voltage before installing back in the truck. I exchanged the battery at Wally World, installed the new battery, and it started right up. Problem is, the LED's didn't switch on. That got me thinking-when I purchased this truck, I noticed it was positive ground. I'd never seen this before, but am admittedly a newb to Land Cruiser wiring and electrical systems in general. I've read it was common on older 6 volt systems, but for the life of me cannot find anything in the Land Cruiser FSMs suggesting they were ever positive grounded. Since I believe LEDs are polarity sensitive, I'm wondering if the positive ground setup is causing the headlight issue (and possibly the issue with my truck eating up a new battery shortly after install).
Has anyone out there heard of certain model years being positive ground? If not, is reversing it back to stock as easy as turning the battery around and swapping the battery cables? I don't want to risk frying anything, but am learning on this car so would appreciate any advice.
I've been a long time fan of this forum, and have been slowly restoring a 1971 40 I purchased last year with the help of all the knowledgable folks on Mud! I've run into a dilemma this past weekend and was wondering if anyone out there can help, as I've been unable to find info about this via search:
I recently did a bunch of work on "Chuggy" over the winter, replacing leaky radiator, old fuel pump, etc., to include LED headlights (thanks to City Racer's site). Once I got everything buttoned up and went to start the truck, the battery was dead as a hammer, despite being on a trickle charger over the winter, being less than 6 months old, and testing okay for voltage before installing back in the truck. I exchanged the battery at Wally World, installed the new battery, and it started right up. Problem is, the LED's didn't switch on. That got me thinking-when I purchased this truck, I noticed it was positive ground. I'd never seen this before, but am admittedly a newb to Land Cruiser wiring and electrical systems in general. I've read it was common on older 6 volt systems, but for the life of me cannot find anything in the Land Cruiser FSMs suggesting they were ever positive grounded. Since I believe LEDs are polarity sensitive, I'm wondering if the positive ground setup is causing the headlight issue (and possibly the issue with my truck eating up a new battery shortly after install).
Has anyone out there heard of certain model years being positive ground? If not, is reversing it back to stock as easy as turning the battery around and swapping the battery cables? I don't want to risk frying anything, but am learning on this car so would appreciate any advice.