Beck TD, Part 18: Getting Negative

Work has been slow on Beck TD for the past few weeks, because I was preoccupied with some heavy equipment that has made its way to the Grant St. Garage. On the same day, I got a mid-50's Index milling machine from the Facebook merchant Lamlor Brandt, and a 1947 Logan lathe from Phil Oles. Lamar, the Facebook merchant, had a skid loader that made it possible, if not easy, to move everything. Here are the two machines in place. Many thanks to the "muscle" who helped out: Kelly Williams, Phil Oles and Troy Nace! Of course, also a huge thanks to Lamar, who didn't stay around for the photo.

I did do a bit of work on Beck, and even drove it around on a 45 degree day (Fahrenheit), which was chilly but rewarding. I also made a "punch list" of tasks I want to accomplish by early June, and it's a great big list! I finished one of the tasks today: converting the electrical system to negative ground.

British cars in the 50's and even 60's often had the positive terminal of the battery as "ground," and the negative as "hot." The electrons don't care a bit which one we call "ground" - it's just a convenience for humans. However, the ground is usually the car's frame and body, and any equipment attached to that might need it one way or the other. I had a few things I want to do that will just be easier with negative ground, so I worked my way through the relatively simple procedure. The web is full of instructions, so I'm not posting a step-by-step. However, I do need to document exactly what I did to Beck, so here goes:

1. Install new battery leads so that they would reach the opposite terminal on the battery.

2. Re-polarize the generator. This seems like a sketchy procedure, since it involves wiring to the field terminal (the smaller one) on the generator, and "sparking" it a few times. However, it seems to have worked fine - the generator shows charging on the ammeter gauge.

3. Swap the two small wires on the ignition coil from side to side.

4. Swap the two wires on the ammeter gauge - that involved head-under-the-dash work, and was probably the hardest part.

5. Swap the leads on the Facet electric fuel pump. That pump is not stock to the TD, and I had previously ascertained (by searching the Facet website) that I could just swap the wires.

6. An important final step: add a label so that any mechanic working on Beck knows that the swap has been done!

Now that this has been done, I will order the high-intensity taillight panels I want to add. I could actually have gotten them in positive ground configuration, but I want to do some other things related to gauges and a Pertronix ignition that really needed the negative ground. Here's the link for those lights: https://www.brittrix.com/L471_for_Early_TD_and_Morris_Minor/p4439722_17187402.aspx

Another link from the brittrix.com site, https://www.brittrix.com/storepage4439716.aspx, shows the big difference that those lights will make. I want Beck to be very visible, because that gas tank is the rearmost thing in the car! 

Continue on to Part 19...