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I did this once. It blew out the diodes in the alternator or maybe it was the regulator, I forget, long time ago.
It could blow up the battery. To minimize the risk of blowing the battery up, never connect both clamps to the dead battery. The safe procedure is to first connect the clamps to the good battery , then the Positive to the dead and then the negative to a good ground like the engine or alternator bracket, not the battery post.
Jim,
Not sure where you heard that.
But I was always told to connect the Dead battery first
That way, if they do cross, it will either blow it up, or do nothing
That's the way I do it if I jump someone
I hook theirs up, then mine.
I dont let them do any of it tho
I thought the idea was to connect + to + and then connect the - to your battery and then to the frame of the other car. I thought the reason was that if there was going to be a spark you'd want it as far from the battery as you could get so the gas from the battery wouldn't explode.
I always find it usefull to know why I'm doing something rather than just remember what to do.
I'm not sure which battery (if any) would blow up if the wires were reversed, but you would want to connect the cable to the frame of the car with the non-exploding battery. I think everyone can understand the logic of that.
Anyone got any old batteries they want to try this on to see which one explodes first?
Andy, good idea on doing it all yourself and not letting mr/mrs stranded motorist "help".
I tried it once in a heavy downpour. Sparks flew all over the place. Probably the rain that saved me from an exploding battery. Combine being in a hurry because of rain and a ******* brand of jumper cables that had black and yellow instead of the standard black and red and ... I screwed up! Thankful to not have been injured.
I think of the 100s of opportunities to accidently injure or kill oneself, many of which I blunderingly took, and I thank the grace of God that I am still alive.
Oh yeah, in the above incident, I muttered something about the car must have other problems, folded the cables, and made a beeline with my waterlogged backside to my truck and took off, leaving this person to the mercies of their companies security folks to help. Only on the way home did it dawn on me the stupid thing I did.