Battery Polarity

[Pat the Jawa]

MZ TS250/1 battery connection. According to the Haynes workshop manual wiring diagram the MZ TS 250/1 has a negative earth system but my bike is positive earth. The positive terminal of the battery is connected directly to the frame. I've checked the generator connections by their colour coding and found them to be correct. I've also bought a 6 volt electronic regulator which doesn't seem to work and was wondering if this could be caused by the positive earth polarity? I'm hoping somebody has come across this odd problem regarding battery polarity and might know of a solution? Thanks, Pat

[therealche]

Yup it should be negative earth. I would try connecting the battery the other way round and seeing if the electronic regulator works ( if it's not been fried that is) . Nothing on a TS is polarity sensitive as far as I can remember

[Pat the Jawa]

Thanks for the reply. Managed to get it sorted - mentioned the problem to a friend of mine who had rebuilt Brit bikes and he told me it was a simple matter of repolarising the dynamo and swopping the battery around.

[DAVID THOMPSON]

Good thing to watch for on a used bike as a lot of early engilsh built bikes were positive ground
Most others were negative ground
And it can in most cases cause some bad problems
Dave

[Pat the Jawa]

Glad I got the dynamo charging polarity sorted as positive earth can cause corrosion problems so I'm told. And by chance I hadn't fried the electronic regulator but was still out of luck as it was allowing the voltage to rise above 8 volts which is too high for the battery. I've returned the faulty regulator and ordered a different one - cross fingers that one works OK. Did discover an odd thing with the incorrect polarity in that once I'd changed it my cheapie led indicator bulbs still worked and didn't need their connections swopping around. The led flasher unit had to have its connections swopped though.