I jumped a guy's '68 Challenger earlier this spring, and he hooked up his side backwards, as well. This after he just finished bragging about rebuilding the car last summer, etc. Sounded like he knew better!

Sparked like a mother, but the JK is fine.

Hope yours is, too!

 

I did this same thing with my jeep (just put in my optima and it is in the opposite position is was in my cherokee which caused me to hookit up wrong). The cables started smoking, I melted just the very top of my grille where the cable was drapped, and just a little of my bumper. Scared the crap out of me, but nothing wrong to either vehicle. I ruined a good shirt trying to get the extremely hot clamps off the battery terminals though.

 

yikes .hope everything is ok.

 

I had a guy jump my dead battery once and believe or not it actually changed the polarity of the battery. The negative became the positive and vise versa. The truck started and ran for awhile, and then the alternator and ignition coils started going out, I'd replace them only to have them go out the next day. After 4-5 days, I had to charge the almost dead battery and when I hooked it up, it sparked at me when I hooked it up the correct way. Tested the battery and sure enough, the polarity was bassackward.

 

Yeah, I jumped a buddy of mine a couple of months ago. We were BSing and I was not paying any attention to what I was doing. It wasn't until he asked me if it was supposed to be smoking like that that my brain jumped out of neutral. No harm to either vehicle. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

When I hooked up my winch, I installed some plugs kind of like these. NOTE FOR THE ILLITERATE: I did not use this kit. This was the first example I could find on a sponsored site. Warn makes a much heavier duty setup that comes with plug in jumper cables. Plus I replaced the cables from battery to plug with lower numbered (=thicker wire) welding cables. So now I have a plug mounted to the front bumper that I can plug my winch cables or battery jumper cables into.

http://www.quadratec.com/products/warn/92113_XXX_PG.htm If anybody wants, I'll meander out this morning and take some pics to post up for you.

 

I don't get it...how hard could it be...they are color coded? Red to red...black to black...

 

Ahhh young Jedi, brain farts happen to everyone, especially old farts.

 

Darkness, at least in my case, it was late and you couldn't see crap.

 

Also, red top optimas are all red on top, just have the molded plastic + and - signs which are hard to see in the dark.

 

we have an old adage to remember which goes to which but i cant say it here.