qdeezie

I've looked at a few ways to go about doing it. From what I see is that the cable goes from the battery to a ground on the chassis then to the battery and the factory cable is all in one on this.

1. I've seen simple replacement wires for this that are a direct OEM replacement.
Concern: I don't think the gauge of wire is heavy enough to be honest. I think the factory gauge is 6 gauge, which starts the truck, but truly doesn't send enough "juice" to the starter to make it "throw the engine outta there."

2. I've seen wires that are basically a 2 piece set. You have to order 2 different length wires to accomplish the connection.

3. I've never seen this setup, but how about just running two separate (heavier gauge) wires from the battery post. One goes directly to the ground and one goes directly to the starter.

All of this is in light of what I found out recently about how the positive cable was inadequate on my truck and how doubling it up from the battery to the solenoid (Suggestion by Just call me Sean) made my truck's starter turn over way faster and consistently when hot than it ever did the entire time I owned it.

What are your thoughts? #3 sounds good, #2 doesn't sound bad, but sounds sorta risky to me.

fordtrucknut

what ever you wrote makes no sense..

what truck do you have? year make model engine size stuff like that.....

you basic set up is a wire off your positve battery terminal to the starter solenoid, then another wire from your solenoid to the battery.
negative terminal is eithr a long wire that goes off the terminal to the frame then up to the block. or from the terminal to the block then another wire from the block to the frame.

qdeezie

For clarification and to simplify since my original post seems to be too long.

I want to upgrade my battery ground cables whether it be from the solenoid or from the battery.

What do you suggest as far as how to upgrade the gauge of wire being used?

There is one wire that goes to the frame and then to the block or starter (I haven't checked).

This wire is a one piece unit that grounds in two locations.

How should I address this?

Just call me Sean

iTrader: (1)

I bought a heavy ground cable of the proper length. I pried the little bracket thingy bolted to the frame off the old cable, stripped the new cable at the right spot and beat the bracket thingy onto the new cable. Then bolted it on. You can do it in two pieces if you want, and/or you can add more grounds. Can't have too many grounds, after all, almost everything metal is ground.

5Rangers

On mine, some previous cobbler replaced the factory ground with aftermarket that doesn't include the mid length frame attachment. I would have just got the factory cable and put it in there and be done with it, I still may. But anyway, the ground goes from the battery to one of the bolts where the starter mounts. Then from the block to the frame.

qdeezie

I guess a screwdriver, pliers, maybe a combination of chisels/punches and a hammer is what's required to do that. Sounds like a good idea.

BigGreyBox

I just replaced my ground wires. I didn't bother with the middle ground point on the wire. The more bare metal, the quicker it will corrode again. That's what happened to my old one anyway. My setup runs 2 gauge wire from the battery to a ground bolt on the side by the radiator support. Then from there I have a 6 gauge wire running to the starter. Even without the little middle bracket, it starts better than it did before.

qdeezie

Just coming back to provide an update. I bought some 4 gauge stereo wire (Kolossal Fleks Kable from knukonceptz.com) and put a gold plated terminal on both ends (3/8 eye terminal to bolt to the block and 1/4 eye terminal to bolt to the screw on the battery terminal) and installed it and my truck starts faster and way more consistent than ever. No more of the slow or no start when it gets hot. It turns over fast whether it's hot or cold.

For those who are looking to create their own custom block to battery wire, it was 36 inches long on my truck from the battery to the block.

Probably later on, I will upgrade to the 1/0 gauge cable, but for now, it works perfectly, so I'm going to leave it as is.

For my slow startup problems, I did the double 4 gauge positive from the positive terminal to the solenoid and and an upgraded wire from the from the ground post on the battery to the engine block.

For everything I used the car audio 4 gauge wires and gold plated terminals. One thing I did that's probably different from most was instead of bolting down raw wire to the terminal, I had terminals on both ends of the wire and I bolted the terminal that was on the end of the wire to the bolts that hold down the raw wire on the battery terminal. I'll post pics to show what I am talking about. It works for me and I am good to go!