Need advice on battery cable replacement kit

[DougBoy66]

I used these

Just like @TahoeTom already said

 

[THSIM9]

Quality Copper Battery Cables Made in the USA! - BatteryCablesUSA

www.batterycablesusa.com

Measure your cables and order from this website. I did this for my truck and the cables are really nice.

 

[snicklas]

Use the "attach files" button at the bottom, left of the orange "post reply" button. You will open a file manager. You will need to know the file name of your photo and where it is.

A note on solder. You want 60/40 ( Tin/Lead ) or 63/37 ( Eutectic ) solder, Rosin core ( For electronic work ). You do NOT want plumbing solder ( acid core , often 40/60 or 50/50 ). Acid core is corrosive and you will have problems later.

Disintegrated green copper powder where the cable used to be.

The good stuff we used to use is no longer sold because of it's lead content. But that tin/lead alloy was the best we had for a good metallurgical wetting.


When I have had to do lug attachment for severe environments, I strip and tin ( saturate with solder ) both the stranded cable end, and the interior of the lug after a good mechanical cleaning with sandpaper, use plenty of flux and solder to tin the inside. While still hot, I pick up the hot lug and fling it onto the floor to remove excess molten solder and flux residue. When it's cool enough to handle, I inspect my tinning job to verify I have a good "wet", that is, I have a nice thin layer of fresh solder all over the inside surface of my lug. I also verify the strands of my copper cable are also thoroughly wetted. Try not to mess up the "lay" of the wire, so the wire doesn't splay out and create voids. If I am trying to tin old wire, it may take me several tries using fresh flux and solder to get a good solder wet on the strands. Reinspect and re-do until you get it right.

What I am after is the clean hermetic seal the subsequent soldering of lug to wire will provide. If any water gets in there, I am just setting myself up for future misery.

Once I am convinced the wire and lug are properly wetted with fresh solder ( if the solder is forming balls and voids, that is NOT an acceptable wet. It should smoothly coat the surface and drip off at the lowest point. If the solder is balling up like water on wax paper, it ain't wet. Needs better cleaning, more flux, and another try.

Now assemble the wire onto the lug. Trim excess. If loose, crimp. Then reflow the solder, with more flux and more solder will wick in, filling any voids in the connection with liquid solder.

Again wipe away excess with a rag, let cool, inspect and clean up rough edge, and do the heat shrink tubing for a finishing seal.

Back to the solder:

I haven't had much success with these new lead free solders. Seems like some sort of metallurgical incompatibility. The joint won't wet right, and comes out brittle.

Now, the element Tin ( Stannum, Sn ), is getting expensive. Today's solder has a lot of tin, and they keep trying to find other metals to replace lead. I haven't found anything that works as well ( metallurgically speaking ) as lead does as far as intermetallic bonding/wetting.

The big boys won't touch it. It won't meet ROHS Lead-Free standards. No one is going to be eating electrical connectors anyway. Do this right and you will never have to do this again.

Old school lead based solder can still be found on eBay, usually as partial spools like someone bought an old fixit shop and selling off the pieces. I have bought close to 100 pounds of mixed solder remnants off eBay.

I got it cheaper by accepting mixed lots of scrap solder, as I also use solder for other things.

For now, most people are using the new stuff and eBay has an ample selection of small quantities of odds and ends of various solders. Do not use acid flux solder.

Search eBay for "vintage 60/40 solder". And a fresh tin of rosin paste flux. The solder alloy is a metal. It doesn't age. I have seen rosin lose potency with age and the solder fails to wet as expected. The old solder may have surface oxidation. Upon melting, this rises to the surface along with the flux residue and should be wiped off while the solder is still molten, leaving behind a clean well wetted shiny joint. Not only is the solder a conductor of electricity, it is also a water displacer ( filler of voids ), as well as offering mechanical support. The ideal is to keep any battery acid from ever wicking up the copper battery cables.

One other thing I have seen coming out: "CCA wire". That isn't Cold Cranking Amperes. It stands for "Copper Clad Aluminum". It looks and feels like solid copper. But the underlying aluminum does not have the physical or electrical characteristics of pure copper.

Solder will dissolve copper. That is why it wets with a strong intermetallic bond. There is secondary alloying going on inside a solder joint. Ever tried to solder onto aluminum? For me that has been tricky at best. The fact solder does dissolve copper is why I have to keep changing tips in my soldering tools. The liquid solder keeps dissolving them!

I got fooled with some CCA wire by trying to solder it to a connector, only to discover I could not tin the wire properly. Turns out I was washing the copper cladding off with liquid solder, and the remaining aluminum did not have the intermetallic properties to bond at the aluminum-copper interface.

I could not trust anything I made with that wire. Crimp only. Bad news. Aluminum does not spring back like copper, and dimensional recovery from thermal cycling accelerated connection failure. It's the reason they no longer wire houses with aluminum wire. Too many fires.

@snicklas :

I probably put this post in the wrong place; I just wanted to share things I have learned with this community. Maybe I can save someone else a do-over, and, more important, why.

You’re good. This is good information to have.

 

[XOLATEM]

good metallurgical wetting.

That has got to be the most detailed, informative and enlightening discourse on the current state of cable connection fabrication I have ever seen !!

Thank you very much.

That was damn good writing !!

By the way...somehow, I am still using what looks like my original cables but I know that the day is coming....

 

[ttman4]

Well I still not sure if pic is posting

On Edit…. It didn’t

 

[Indadesert]

I’d just make my own.

 

[kbenz]

I’d just make my own.

I make most of my own cables once I swap to group 31 batteries

 

[scsmith42]

I make most of my own cables once I swap to group 31 batteries

I was planning to use SLI31SA's in my 90 F250 (same batteries as my heavy trucks use) but they were 2" taller than the OEM Group 65 batteries and the hood wouldn't close.

For the amount of time that it would take me to modify the battery trays for the taller batteries, I figured that I'd bit the bullet and simply pay fifty bucks more apiece for the Group 65 style batteries.

 

[jibronee]

Haven't gotten new cables yet because I've been looking to go to 29 or 31 batteries with studs as that's what my battery cable is currently set up for. (Cables are bolted/sandwiched to regular crappy post clamps, which is were the corrosion is happening, plus batteries are past due on replacement.)

Looked online and almost all stud type batteries were marine/deep cycle. Would this be ok/good to use as a replacement?

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Deep cycle batteries generally aren't great for an automotive application. They are designed to be fully or almost discharged and the recharged. Automotive set ups have a discharge at engine start up and then the battery(ies) are recharged. They see little discharge while the engine's running if the charging system is in good condition. This is my understanding from what I've been told.

 

[jibronee]

IDIBronco, Yeah, I agree with you. But I also found that marine/deep cycle batteries are made to take more vibration and a beating, compared to regular auto batteries. And figuring boats use these and are charged the whole time on the lake while listening to radio. Figured our IDI's are basically the same??.. Plus I take my stock dually 4x4 off road and to the beach; and I can get 2 marine batteries for almost $300 with 2 year warranty. I might just gamble and see how it works out. I'll post up when they fail!! lol

 

[kbenz]

Haven't gotten new cables yet because I've been looking to go to 29 or 31 batteries with studs as that's what my battery cable is currently set up for. (Cables are bolted/sandwiched to regular crappy post clamps, which is were the corrosion is happening, plus batteries are past due on replacement.)

Looked online and almost all stud type batteries were marine/deep cycle. Would this be ok/good to use as a replacement?

check local diesel truck shops. got mine from ellers diesel for about $125 a piece

 

[DougBoy66]

@jibronee you are walking a dangerous high-wire without a net if you move forward without hearing how rediculous we all are and receiving the advice from the all seeing eye and unmatched wealth of knowledge that is Indadesert.

 

[DougBoy66]

Just kidding.... listen to @IDIBRONCO

 

[scsmith42]

- funny responses above.

@jibronee , I live on a farm and have for 25 years. We have LOTS of battery powered equipment on the farm. Probably cost me 7K today if I had to replace every battery at the same time.

My experience with the marine / deep cycle batteries is that they don't last as long as a good quality automotive battery. I usually get 6 - 7 years out of my automotive batteries (the record was 11 years), but most deep cycles that I've used need replacing in 3 - 4.

I don't recall what year truck you have, but can attest that group 31's would not fit in my 1990 F250 w/o major modifications to the battery box. They are around 2" taller than the OEM group 65's, and the posts on the batteries would hit the underside of the hood before it could be fully closed.

After determining the time / hassle it would take me to modify the original battery boxes (and I did not wish to relocate the batteries elsewhere on the truck), I opted to spend the extra $ to buy new group 65's that would bolt right in.

YMMV -

Scott