Ground

[stevieb7]

I'm restoring an old 24 foot pocket cruiser that sleeps 4. I'm told that to get good ground, the battery's negative needs to be connected first to the engine. I have an 8hp outboard for motor power. What are your thoughts?

[Kettlewell]

Does your outboard have an alternator that recharges the battery a bit? If so, there will be a two-wire cable that goes from the battery to the outboard that both powers the electric start and provides some charging in reverse. That will essentially ground your battery to the motor. If you have a pull start motor with no charging, don't bother to ground the batteries to the motor. Instead you will have what is called a "floating ground" on the boat, where all the negative wires and all the positive wires will eventually return to the negative and positive posts on the battery.

[stevieb7]

a floating ground it will be. Thanks