Positive ground

[daveboy]

Well, I got my new taper roller bearings in this past weekend to replace the old ball-bearings in my '52 half-ton. Getting that inner race off was a bear, but after applying a lot of heat it slid off. Seems that it was installed with some type of adhesive because once I got it off there was a film of some type on the spindle that I removed.

I thought that I would do a little routine maintenance on her (I've only had her a short time), and inspecting and cleaning battery terminals was on my list. I was rather surprised to see that this truck has a positive ground. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? My questions are:

1. Did this truck originally come with a positive ground? ('52 Chevy half-ton)
2. What are the advantages/disadvantages to a positive ground?
3. Heaven-forbid if I ever needed to jump it, but would it still hook the cables positive to positive and negative to negative, or should I reverse that?
4. What would happen if I hooked the positive terminal on the battery to the starter and the negative terminal to the frame?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks
daveboy