connected battery wrong...
 

i replaced my battery today and mixed up the connectors.:wallbash: im still unsure if i got it right. i've been searching around and read if you connect the battery wrong it will still start and still be able to run till the battery blows. i know i connected it wrong because it sparked pretty bad and now im worried i might have damaged something electrical.

my car is a 90 gxl everything stock.

what should i be checking for?
what usually breaks/gets damaged from a situation like this?
can it retard/FRY anything related to the ecu?
i have the black wire with yellow strip as the neg(-). is that correct?
im hoping it will just burn out some fuses because that is easy to fix.

ahhhhhhhhh man i hate myself, i mean i love that car. PLEASE HELP

does ur car start yet, did u get it hooked up the right way , lol im sorry im laughing as i type this, its kinda hard to get thoses cables fucked up,what were ya thinking when you were doing it, any ways hope it all worked out for ya

i got it to start but im still unsure if its correct. i took out the batter walk in the store, came out with a new battery and forgot which wire was which. YEAH IM SUCH A DUMBASS. but yeah is the black with yellow strip the neg terminal? also i still need answers from above. thanks

No! Wait!!
Isn't black with the yellow stripe positive?

the positive should be closer to the firewall, & the neg closer to the headlight.

If you did hook it up wrong, you probly blew your main fuse.
It's in the fuse rack on the driver's strut tower.
80amp for S4, or 100amp for S5.
You'll need a 10mm socket to change it.

your main fuse blew (engine bay fuse box)
100 amp i beleive, held in with 2 6mm (?) bolts

ive done it before too

The black w/yellow stripe is negative terminal. My friend hooked mine up wrong when we were working on the car and as soon as he connected both terminals, it started sparking like a thunderstorm. It happened as soon as the connections were made, so we never tried to start it with the battery in wrong. He pulled it off and we hooked it up right. The main fuse didn't blow on my car. If you got your car to start and it runs like it did before the battery swap, then all the important stuff (spark ignition system, fuel system, engine management system) is good to go. Next I'd check the lights, radio, horn, heater blower, A/C, etc.... Anything that doesn't work, check the fuse first, but if you didn't try to start the car with the battery in backwards, then most of the stuff probably wasn't getting power so it was a risk damage to those things.

Label wires before unplug them.

watch for a screwed alternator also ..... and all the fuses in the fusebox (the one inside the car ...)

so if anthing, it should blow the main fuse before doing any damge to the car?
i found a couple of burnt fuse, no biggy, how do i check the ALT? i think im still getting the same voltage on the guage.

thanks for the replies.

actually, it is very easy to mix it up and i have done it myself before...quit playing all high and mighty.

After all the threads I have read about this, I am EXTRA careful when hooking up the battery!

if you're lucky like me and just arced it for a split second it probably didn't do any damage at all, even the main fuse was still intact. i would just check the main 80 amp fuse and if it is ok then try and start her up with the battery in the correct way.

will the car start with a bad fuse? because my fuse looks like it about to go(the fuse is kind of dark on the metal part inside the fuse compared to the other fuses, but my car is working.

Its probably dark cause its old. Fuses don't "look like they are about to go".

its a 10mm i destroyed mine last night trying to get it out. i never knew it was held in by 2 10mm bolts.

same thing happend to mine becasue i was in a hurry and i had the battery the wrong way but mine when i cranked mine it cranked and turned off and it blew my main 100amp i believe or 80amp main fuse thats under the hood

why not save yourself the aggravation and go to a Dollar store,get a roll of RED electrical tape,and wrap a couple turns around the positive battery cable..that way you won't wonder about cable swap..(I still have the protective cover on my positive lead)..and besides the posts are different sizes too..just an observation.

i found that out hte hard way also.... on one car when i was messing around under the dash some wires desided to start billowing smoke, i was like OHH #*@*!!! key was off also,

hood was allready open luckly so i quickly ran under the hood and started yanking every fuse out!( since my battery was firmly conected)

i yanked on the main fuse like it was life or death and it finally broke out lol

and luckly the smoke stoped and nothing caught on fire!!

^-- I have also done the same thing.

I've hooked 'em up wrong before too...




CLICK!

That a good observation if your not shure just mark both ends. I never take anything apart with out numbering each end, if i'm not positive i'll remember were it goes, It just makes life alot ez-er.

last time i as swapping batteries, i got confused too... it doesnt help that the negative cable has a yellow stripe, usually the positive side is marked, not the ground. and the battery i was swapping to had its terminals on the far side, so they looked like they were backwards too.

I was just about to suggest this! I don't understand how one can connect a battery backwards (of course now that I've said that I'll go right out and do it...) but if you need something dreadfully obvious, wrapping the + cable with red tape is about as obvious as it gets. Also paint the battery near the + post with red spray paint.

I just picked up a 87 GXL for free. The guy put it away four years ago and when he went to get it back out the battery was dead. He replaced the battery and it still wouldn't crank over. He didn't have the knowledge or money to deal with it so it just sat for years until I went and took it off his hands. After reading this post I went out and popped the hood and sure enough he had the battery in backwards. I pulled the main fuse and sure enough it is blown. My question is where can I buy a 80 amp main fuse? Does autovalue or napa stock them, or is it a mazda direct part? My other question is, I hooked up a new battery correctly and the lights and other componets work, what other fuses should I check then?

Thanks
Fred

you can get that anywhere... fix the MAIN fuse first