Long battery cables

I am trying to relocate my kill switch in my lemons car inside the car (instead of on the cowl).

I have a rather simple question....

How do you guys get / make LONG battery cables? I need 2 cables that can carry all of the battery's juice for about 8 to 10 feet each direction.

What do you guys use?

Thanks!

Rob R.

Welding cable and copper lugs. Visit welding, tractor or heavy truck repair shop

How do you install the copper lugs? Just crimp, or something else?

Thanks for the quick reply!

Rob R.

On our lemons cars we used butt splice connectors and ring terminals, and then crimped them down with bolt cutters. I think we got the cable and ring terminals at Pegasus, not sure where we found the butt splice connectors, but they are not uncommon.

I use a hammer crimper I picked up from the boating supply store, which was West Marine in this case. Worked awesome on some 1/0 cables I made.

Aluminum cable is very light, bought 30 feet for scrap price of $9.90, I have one piece on the Challenge Rustang.

Salvage the battery cables out of a junkyard BMW E30 or E36.

In reply to MadScientistMatt:

Or Cobalt. They also have a rear mount battery.

In reply to Zomby Woof:

Seems like anything German is rear mounted. And to add to the list, 300c/Chargers of the LX body variety.

Call Summit, Jeg's, Speedway, etc for the battery cable kits they sell to drag racers.

I've used bulk stereo cables (4G?), but for a Lemons car, you may be able to make some out of a set of jumper cables.

soldered the lug on mine. poked the wire in some flux, fit the lug on and hit it with a mapp gas torch for a few seconds.

Home Depot sells wire up to 4/0 in bulk.

I used to solder the lugs to the cabling, now I just crimp with Vise-Grips, which works just as well. I've used a vise, I've used a 20 ton press, they all seem to work equally well. I "D" the crimp with an 8mm all-thread stud also.

aussiesmg wrote: Aluminum cable is very light, bought 30 feet for scrap price of $9.90, I have one piece on the Challenge Rustang.

Aluminum cable has a higher resitance so a bigger size wouldl be needed to match a copper cable. May offset the weight advantage.

MadScientistMatt wrote: Salvage the battery cables out of a junkyard BMW E30 or E36.

this. Just make sure its a 325, as e30 318s have the battery up front.

welding cable yes! copper solder or crimp ends no. MOROSO slit nut ends YES. They work and are reuseable.

http://www.jegs.com/i/Moroso/710/74175/10002/-1?CT=999&sendroicid=bbef8492-2d00-41d6-b158-38db0de2603c&sendroiad=4242959711&sendroikwd=Moroso+74175&gclid=CK_gpvKwz7ICFYWo4AodTBUAWw

and

http://www.jegs.com/i/Moroso/710/74170/10002/-1?CT=999&sendroicid=bbef8492-2d00-41d6-b158-38db0de2603c&sendroiad=4242959711&sendroikwd=Moroso+74170&gclid=CN-R2Jixz7ICFQpN4AodDGUAiw

When I was crimping ends onto welding cable to run truck power for the winch on my trailer I used this:

http://www.harborfreight.com/hydraulic-wire-crimping-tool-66150.html

Hasn't turned into a hammer yet, but I've only had it six months.

I bought 1/0 copper wire at Lowes. It's stiff, but you can bend it to the shape you want and it will stay that way. For the salvage yard route, lots of the bigger GM sedans like the Lesabre (early 2000's) had batteries under the back seat.

MadScientistMatt wrote: Salvage the battery cables out of a junkyard BMW E30 or E36.

^^this, or find a set of big jumper cables.

advance auto sells 2ga cable by the foot. not sure how good the price is, but i usually just buy a battery relocation kit from summit.

i always solder the lugs to the cable

on our chumpcar i used 6 ga welding cable. advanpepzone sells ring terminals that are dang close (3/8" ring vs 10mm stud on kill switch).

like several others, i solder them on.

Do not use jumper cables. The actual copper conductor part is not very big on most jumper cables. It might work okay at first but you will have trouble restarting when the starter is heat soaked and drawing more current.

I think we bought cable from one of the hardware stores when we moved the battery to the trunk of the '93 SL2 race car. Connectors were had at Autozone, I believe. Soldered them on...incredible amounts of solder were used, and we used a blowtorch rather than a soldering gun because of the sheer size of the wire.