Well Im still having battery troubles. Someone told me that if the cables are too small and too long they wont get enough voltage back to the battery and will slowly kill it. Is this true? The car has a 429, but the cables are uneccesarily long and came off the old 223 straight-six. Could this kill the battery over time? Thanks, -Dean
never heard that before but it couln't hurt to run some newer,thicker correct length wires. It's cheap and relatively easy. Plus it'll clean up your engine bay a wee bit. I know that running too small a wire can mess with the battery in regards to amps...stereo. I'm having that issue right now. Something about the stress and how much a wire can handle...so it makes sense that what you were told is entirely possible. I'd change em. Have you checked your alternator/generator?
in a word , yes, here is where a quality product is needed, use a high quality copper wire, multi strand, and quality connections, don't use any longer than to be safely routed and also make sure you add ground straps from the engine to the frame having a rubber engine mount and you need to have a loop comign from the engine back to the frame and the body, those little braided ones will do fine, you need to make sure the path of electricity is efficient ,does wonders for transferring the voltage back into the battery and the items using it , brighter lights and better total voltage for your ignition,
The longer the cables the more the voltage drop to the load.Use a bigger cable and good quality. Also running at a lower than Ideal voltage,the starter may fail prematurely
Used cables can also corrode inside the sheath where you can't even see it. Short cables, and a clean ground are as important as the correct diameter. Ground the battery to the engine, engine to the frame, frame to the body, and make sure there is no paint or rust under any of the grounds.
Is your battery going dead over a period of time or is it just slow cranking even with a fully charged battery because small cables will not make a battery go dead but will cause a voltage drop through the cables causing slow crank?
The battery dies over the course of a good month (daily driver too). But sometimes, especially on hot days, it will have a really tough time cranking over. I cant find anything that would be draining it, and if it was the alternator, wouldnt it kill the battery quicker? -Dean
Hot weather kills it? I would say that you have corrosion in your cables somewhere. Check all of your connections anyway.
I've been known to use over kill when it comes to battery cables now. I've replaced perfectly good starter motors and sat embar***ed as all the admirers at the 7-11 heard the "click-click-click" They are cheap and can cause all kinds of problems. Make sure the the neg. cable is connected directly to the engine or trans. I use the tailshaft bolt for a trunk mounted battery. The shorter the cable the better off you will be. Yes you can run it to the frame and add jumpers to the engine but eliminating any extra mechanical connections (places for corrosion) will make life easier down the road. been there done that. To check for a battery drain, disconnect a battery cable. Connect a common test light between the cable and the battery post. With the key off, the test light should be dark. Close the door if you have a dome light. If the test light is on, start pulling fuses until the light goes out. When the light goes out you have found the circuit with the drain. Some guys that do a lot of diagnostic work will use a 12v buzzer instead of the light. You don't have to climb out from under the dash to check the light.
we always make our own cables from welder cable and i never had any trouble at all. always run the ground all the way back to the motor and you should not have any trouble. own my cars with the battery in the trunk i ground them on the frame at the back and then run a ground cable up to the motor too.
USE BEEFY W E L D I N G C A B L E, its the best quality, fine strand cable around !! Also, use S O L D E R E D T E R M I N A L S, that way they cant work loose like crimped cables can over time. Complete the proper ground circuit as mentioned, ground the -ve of the batt to the trans or engine. Youll be OK this way. Rat
Skinny battery cables draining your battery voltage? Oh, HELL yes! It could be the electricity falling out of your cigarette lighter socket too. Do you have it plugged with a lighter element? The new cars use a black plastic cap to keep the electricity in there but the stock lighter element will work as well. You may also want to use black plastic tape to tape a piece of plastic over your fuse box. All those exposed fuses tend to "bleed off" the electrons and ions in the current. The drain is fairly minimal to the battery but over time it can mount up. The real damage is to the atmosphere. If all the cars had open fuse panels, the electron "overloading" of the atmosphere could be catastrophic. There is a study going on right now to determine the gravity of this problem and it's been discovered the ion overloading in the stratosphere may be responsible for about 1/3 of the thunderstorms over metropoliton areas. It was also discovered the reason your hair stands up after sliding across your seat in the car is NOT static electricity from the sliding action at all......it's the electrons that have seeped out of your car's wiring [especially severe if your car is missing the plastic dome light lens] and are trying to ground themselves. You become the ground the residual electricity needs to complete a circuit which breeds more little ions and electrons...it's a vicious cycle and if left to breed, these mean little bits of errant electricity can give you quite a shock. I haven't heard of any deaths YET but........ . . . ...........Read Tommy's response.he's right........
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