The negative cable should attach to an engine ground, neaning it should be bolted to the body,or subframe. It really does not natter where you connect the end of the ground lead, to a bolt or secure screw that is attached to a bracket or body mounted metal object. As long as the connection is tight and secure to allow for proper ground in the starting circuit. If the cable broke and is too short, a longer cable is available at any auto supply store.
The negative should be going from the negative side of the battery to a place on the engine somewhere. I would suggest having him remove the battery from the car by removing the negative and positive terminals on the battery itself, loosening the battery hold down bracket and taking the battery out. Then he should be able to trace where the negative cable is grounding to. Since you say that the car won't start , a lot of times it has to do with bad connections or bad terminal ends at the battery, or dirty and corroded battery posts. Grab a piece of sandpaper and clean up the battery posts really good. The end result should be a shiney battery post with no corrosion. If there is a lot of corrosion, Sprinkle a little water on the posts and then some baking soda and let it work its magic. It will start to foam up a little and you don't want to get any of this on anything because it will eat through anything. After the baking soda has worked for a couple of minutes, rinse it off with plenty of water and wipe it dry with a rag that you don't have a problem tossing in the trrash afterwards. Use the sandpaper to lean up the inside of the battery terminal ends. The end result should look similar to the battery posts. Nice and shiney. Then place the battery back in the car if you removed it and hook up the terminals and tighten them enough but be careful because the posts are not the strongest in the world and you could break it off. Just as long as the terminals can't move on the battery posts you should be good. Try and start it then. If this doesn't work replace the battery terminal ends with new ones and that should do it. There is still a chance that you have a bad battery also. But doing all the other things first won't cost you very much, mostly your time and all of the work is always good preventitive maintenance anyways. Good Luck
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It's the place on the engine somewhere that he doesn't know. It's connecting to the battery fine, but it came loose from where it should be connected. He has pictures in his Haynes manual, but they show the cable back somewhere beyond the starter. It doesn't show what it's connected to. Any ideas?
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