Battery cables

nostrokes

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Hello all,

I know making our own cables is preferred, but in the interest of time I need to purchase pre manufactured cables. Here's the history.. my truck has started doing the clunk, clunk, clunk roll over clunk a few more times then hold my mouth right and cross my fingers the starter will spin. First thought was new starter, but after fiddling with the cables everything is good in the hood for a while, then back to the clunk. Fiddle with the cables again and it's fine again for a while.

I'm going to replace the cables first, so I was wondering if anyone has tried standard motor products positive cable. Rock Auto has it listed for $72 ish, NAPA wants over $100 and I'm not even going down the stealership route.

Thanks all
 

PROFG

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Parallel batteries should not feed loads and charge from same battery, like OEM. This causes uneven loading and early failure of one, usually pass side. Probably source of labels "cranking battery" and "glow plug battery" seen elsewhere on this forum. TRUCK positive cable connected to pass side bat should have TRUCK negative connected to drivers side with same gauge jumpers between batteries. Works for high current discharging electric vehicles with expensive batteries and ohm's law no different for trucks. Oh, and I won't mention it again until I change/test my system.

Edit Added TRUCK
 
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79jasper

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Parallel batteries should not feed loads and charge from same battery, like OEM. This causes uneven loading and early failure of one, usually pass side. Probably source of labels "cranking battery" and "glow plug battery" seen elsewhere on this forum. Positive cable connected to pass side bat should have negative connected to drivers side with same gauge jumpers between batteries. Works for high current discharging electric vehicles with expensive batteries and ohm's law no different for trucks. Oh, and I won't mention it again until I change/test my system.
Pretty sure what you are describing would be 24v.

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PROFG

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No, parallel batteries with load/charge connection of pos of one battery and negative of the other, with same gauge jumpers between them. Each battery then supplies half the load and gets half the charge current, unlike OEM in our Ford trucks (and most other duel parallel battery vehicle installations).
 

Golden Helmet

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Hello all,

I know making our own cables is preferred, but in the interest of time I need to purchase pre manufactured cables. Here's the history.. my truck has started doing the clunk, clunk, clunk roll over clunk a few more times then hold my mouth right and cross my fingers the starter will spin. First thought was new starter, but after fiddling with the cables everything is good in the hood for a while, then back to the clunk. Fiddle with the cables again and it's fine again for a while.

I'm going to replace the cables first, so I was wondering if anyone has tried standard motor products positive cable. Rock Auto has it listed for $72 ish, NAPA wants over $100 and I'm not even going down the stealership route.

Thanks all
I haven't tried their positive battery cables, but I have used their negative cables and they worked perfectly fine.
 

79jasper

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No, parallel batteries with load/charge connection of pos of one battery and negative of the other, with same gauge jumpers between them. Each battery then supplies half the load and gets half the charge current, unlike OEM in our Ford trucks (and most other duel parallel battery vehicle installations).
Maybe I'm not understanding the way you are explaining it.
This is series vs parallel with two 12v batteries.
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Selahdoor

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The way he is explaining it I am seeing the example on the right. Parallel.
 

IDIBRONCO

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The way he is explaining it I am seeing the example on the right. Parallel.
The one on thee right is how our trucks have their batteries hooked up. The difference being that the negatives connect through the engine block with the separate ground cables.
 

Selahdoor

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The one on thee right is how our trucks have their batteries hooked up. The difference being that the negatives connect through the engine block with the separate ground cables.
Yep And I think the point he is making is that the driver negative should have a cable all the way over to the negative on the passenger battery, just like it has the positive cable between the two.

I don't see how that would make any real difference. It's just that is what I understand him to be saying.
 

chillman88

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Yep And I think the point he is making is that the driver negative should have a cable all the way over to the negative on the passenger battery, just like it has the positive cable between the two.

I don't see how that would make any real difference. It's just that is what I understand him to be saying.

I see his point though, electricity tends to follow the path of least resistance so technically there should be a higher load on the passenger side battery.
 

Shadetreemechanic

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I bought replacement cables from oreilly. I was impressed by the quality and think they were around $70. There is an older thread on here where others have also had good luck with Oreilly cables.
I don't remember the actual brand.
 

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