really dumb battery question !?
 

i never thought about this before but i was asked if my 74 911 is a positively or negatively grounded car. i have not put a battery in it yet so i went to look and it has a short red wire connected to the frame and then a black wire with three smaller red wire on the other side of the battery compartment. i guess i just assumed the short red wire going to frame was negative(ground) and other side (black wire with smaller red wires) was the positive side. i don't have a wiring diagram yet. sorry for such a basic question.

jim

Negative ground. PO was just stupid to use a short red cable for ground! To make sure look at your battery. The post with the short red cable should have a negative (-) symbol on it.

thank you. thats what i thought but it made me think for a second

Not a problem jkirby. The really dumb question would have started out with "I switched my battery around because the red cable was on the negative post so I put it on the positive post and now everything is melted. . ." :D

Just be absolutely, positively sure nobody trying to be helpful during a jump start hooks like to like colors with a jumper cable.

Change the ground wire for a proper colored wire or a proper ground strap.
Just to avoid what FSW said, remember Murphys Law.

You could also wrap the exposed portions of each cable with red and black electrical tape as a cheaper and easier fix, but the Don is right: it needs to be corrected before the inevitable happens.