Yea asemaster, I totally feel ya. Coulda just used red right? Here’s what I’ve seen happen that might…maybe soften the stupidity of it. Necessity. The…fill in the blank…lift gate co, plow co, winch co, ordered a spool or red and it was on back order but should still be in before they run out of red. Ooops…we’re out, they didn’t get it in, we don’t have it, they don’t have it an this guy, or these several people are barking about not having their vehicles back in time to get X job done…waaaa right? But it’s real and legit and that’s very common. They had black on the shelf, it’s the same stuff…just black. it was that or having an entire shop full of unfinished jobs, phones ringing, customers threatening legal action if they don’t have their truck back in time for the job they committed to…etc. So they used black. It actually happens very often, you’ll notice it a lot if your job changes and you find yourself servicing plows and other pieces of equipment on vehicles. That doesn’t mean I like it, that doesn’t even suggest I agree with it and rather than do it I think I’d let them sue me. But that’s often how it happens.
To be honest, when I built my second race car, I had to wire everything from scratch…but it was super simple-power to the fuse, then to the water pump or fan or whatever and then ground it. There are only like a few things to wire. I had a large spool or high quality red primary wire. I didn’t have but a little bit of black and no other colors, the car and engine and building the headers and all the crap I didn’t expect put everything way over budget. So, being desperate to race the damn car…I ran every circuit with red on the positive side, ie, no way to differentiate which circuit was which without tracing it unless I put a tag or label on said circuit. Then grounding…I had enough black to ground like maybe 2 circuits. So…I’m embarrassed to say, red got used for ground. I put pieces of black electrical tape in several places so that I knew they were grounds but it probably would have been tricky had someone else bought it and had to get into the wiring. I’m not proud of that fact. But the car will pull a wheelstand for about 90 feet. I wish at that moment I would have had the extra 30 bucks to get a nice big roll of black and some different colors to differentiate different circuits…but hey, it does a 90 foot wheel stand! LOL Stupid stuff like that probably happens more often than you think…and yea, it’s a “head scratcher”, but that’s commonly how it happens.
Have a good one,
Wayne