Jumper Cables - Black to Black or Black to Engine Block?

[funboy6942]

How I do it is if the car maks a ticking sound then Black to anthing metal I can find under the hood be it the frame, alt bracket, or if lucky the stock engine hoist tab that is still connected to the engine (I think that is only on older cars, 1980 chevys and fords). But if the battery is stone cold dead then right to the neg on the battery so it will chage it directly and let the other car run for about 10 minutes before I try anything so not to fry any computer componants and give the battery time to juice up a bit.

 

[AStar617]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
Do you connect the jumper cable to the dead battery's negative terminal or the engine block?

Instructions always say engine block, but there are so few spots the cables will grab onto...

1) Connect red cable terminal to alive positive post.
2) Connect other red cable terminal to dead positive post.
3) Connect black cable terminal to alive negative post.
4) Connect other black terminal to dead engine block or frame. Any unpainted metal will do--I've successfully used the hood hinge in a cramped engine compartment before.

Remove in exact opposite order. The point of "pos-pos-neg-gnd" attachment order is to make sure that you avoid very bad things happening if you accidentally touch the positive and negative on one side of the equation. It'll never be a live circuit.

 

[iamwiz82]

BTW, I have seen very bad things with reversed jumper cables. A friend of mine in college fused them to his bumper because he reversed black and red on one side.

 

[Pacfanweb]

If your battery cables are good, then the absolute best way is by connecting both cables to the battery terminals.

They only tell you to connect the negative to the block because of the very slight fire potential.

I've probably jumped over a thousand cars off, and the vast majority have been by connecting to the battery....with zero problems.

Connecting the negative to the block really just puts some metal and a cable between the battery and the jumper.
If your negative cable is all corroded and split, then you might be better off with a block connection on the vehicle that won't start, but on the actual running vehicle you're better off with a battery connection.

Also, always remember this: Positive (red) should be the first cable on, and the last one off.