Battery Cables

Tentatively, I'm thinking around $120 shipped.

 

That’s not bad

following

 

That's a slick old Mercedes you picked up. I bought and sold a '98 E320 and '93 190E this year. I bought the 190E with a blown HG among a few other problems. It was purring like a kitten when it left with its new owner.

I just hijacked my own thread.

 

yea i like this little car. needs ALOT of work. including an engine rebuild or replacement. which is much harder than i originally thought it would be. oh well. eventually.. I've got all the original paper work, the original plate from new york when it was new, and its mostly a complete car. just has a valve touching a piston is all...

 

We've both seen them brought back to life from worse I'm sure. You got a great deal on that.

 

i brought my tundra back. i'll bring the mercedes back. just waiting for an original m121 or the parts to rebuild mine. i'd restomod. but i also really just want an old simple car. keep it points and all.

 

I have always used 2/0 welding cable for my battery cable up grades .

Before the price of cable and wire went sky high I received great prices from Cable Direct.

They were close enough to pick up in person

 

Yeah, prices for everything are crazy now. Thanks Fed Reserve for printing all that funny money.

2/0 is overkill for this application though it's fine on V8's or high-compression engines (especially diesels). 1 AWG will even work fine on most V8's. I look at peak and nominal starter current draw when sizing cables.

The problem here is with routing. As size goes up, routing becomes more difficult obviously. In this case, the positive cable and solenoid wire need to run in the plastic channel attached in front of the oil pan. Nominal OD of 2/0 TEMCo welding cable is .564". The width of the plastic channel is about .555". Then it gets tighter through the elbow.



Then there is the problem of stiffness. SGX is stiffer than EPDM or PVC-jacketed cable, but it is more resistant to heat, chemicals, and oil than EPDM or PVC. SGX lasts longer than the others as well. That's why I will be using it for the positive cable. Since it routes through an area that is often contaminated with oil (mine was), I won't use EPDM here. EPDM for the ground is a different story because of routing and where it attaches on the driver side of the engine, not likely to get saturated by oil. Also, if the positive insulation fails, you get a shorting (maybe welding!) event. If the ground insulation fails, it's not typically a tragedy.

Considering the OEM (+) cable is close to 2 gauge and the OEM (-) cable is about a 4 gauge, making mine with both cables 2 gauge will be an upgrade, since cable sizing must be done keeping in mind the total length and size of both cables. The ground cable is 38" and the starter cable is 52", so the run is 90". That is gives us 235 amps at 13.8v with a 2% voltage drop.



Since the initial current draw is for such a short period, sizing is not based on that. Continuous current is the ticket. Sample graph:



A couple of starter current charts off the net that have worked for me so far:



When I began making cables for Porsches almost two years ago I did a deep dive into this. Until two weeks ago I was a commercial/industrial electrical prototype technologist at a big company everyone has heard of but I choose not to name publicly. It was time to part ways. I was no longer in the mood to deal with crybaby engineers and directors that had to return to work three days a week after sitting at home for a year and a half while all of us "essential" serfs were still there. Man, did they ever come back pissy! I'm likely taking a little time off (until end of next summer) to finish a BSBA. Only 21 credit hours to go and I don't want to run out of steam. I'm 53 now and it has worn me slick going to school while working full time for the last 2 1/2 years, running a side business or two, and working on and flipping four cars in the last year. Slowing down a little I guess.

 

Love the attention to detail!

 

Gracias. It's a part of many things I do having been a toolmaker/machinist/design engineer since 1993. Here's what I was making yesterday (banjo bridges). This was after the initial sanding after CNC routing. Next they get CNC-cut string slots, slot filing by hand, and then finish sanding, weighing, and marking. It's not a lucrative venture, but it has helped pay for some tooling over the years. It was a hobby that got out of control after I made my first bridge for my own banjo. Now there are over 1000 of them out in the wild.

 

When you get the cable for free it works just fine!

 

That's a fact.

 

I would be interested in a set. Shrockworks bumper will be completed next month, I need to step up my wiring game for the new winch, agm battery and Suzuki 130 alternator. Pm me please

 

I was able to source the three connectors to make the alternator/starter solenoid harnesses this morning. It only took about two hours of scouring the internet. They are ordered and hopefully what arrives is correct. I am now sizing and ordering wire for this part of it. Delivery date for AS connectors is by 25 October. I will make the cable sets before then. As soon as my next shipment comes from Remy Battery, I should have everything to do the cable sets.

 

Now we are butting ends!

 

Yep. Sourcing everything is harder than actually making the stuff! Right now I am ordering 14 gauge TXL for the solenoid wires. The OEM is black with a white stripe. Anyone care if I use solid black or red? I'd rather use red so that I can use it on future applications since I'm ordering 500 feet of it. I like using red on anything positive in a DC system.

 

FWIW, prowire has some great pricing on striped TXL. But not sure they do 14.

EDIT: wow, down to 8 gauge even.

 

Wouldn't matter to me but just a suggestion maybe use a label maker to flag what's + and -

 

These plugs will only plug in to their correct sockets luckily.

 

Prowire price isn't too bad. Wire and Cable Your Way is $15 cheaper for a 500' spool of solid red or striped. I've bought quite a bit from WCYW. I've bought from Wirebarn, Waytek, Harris Welding and WCYW mostly. Waytek has become my favorite for SGX cable, Harris Welding for EPDM, and WCYW for smaller wire.

I think I'll go with red so I can use it on other apps. It'll never be seen since it all runs in the loom. I plan to eventually sell this entire harness ready to go except for the plastic channel in front of the oil pan which will need to be snapped onto the new harness.