How to Re-do Diesel Battery Cables/Terminals (Cummins specifically)
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- Опубліковано 21 лис 2021
- In this video I re do the battery terminals and cables on my 1998 Dodge Ram Diesel, but the methods shown in the video can be applied to any old diesel truck to insure you have a long lasting and good looking battery cable set up!
For parts for a full re-do:
2 Positive Battery Terminals 2/0 Die Cast
2 Negative Battery Terminals 2/0 Die Cast
4 2/0 cable ends with a 3/8 hole
8 2/0 solder cubes (or 4 if you just clamp the cable ends)
Roughly 12 feet of 2/0 battery cable (for full re-do) or 8 feet-ish to do the positives and equivalent amount of wire loom as you see fit
for the grid heaters and wire into the fuse box:
2 feet of 4 gauge cable
5 4 gauge 3/8 cable ends
for the grounds:
2-3 feet of 10 gauge wire
2-3 3/8 eyelet for 10 gauge (depending on how many grounds you add or replace)
2-3 1/4 eyelet for 10 gauge (to attach it to the inner fender or body)
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It’s like you know exactly what’s wrong with my Cummins 😅🤣
It’s only as if I’ve had so many that they all have the same dang problems 🤣
Great video. Right to the point and no B.S. about unrelated things or fake enthusiasm. Just what I needed to know. Thanks.
Thank you! I try to keep every video along the same lines, just straight facts and what you’ve gotta know! Glad you noticed it
Good stuff. I just broke 275K on my 07.5, and I promised myself I would start treating it better this year. That being said, my FACTORY aternator finally crapped out. Along with a new alternator, I think I'll take some time and make some nice, sexy cables like yours. Great video.
Great video, definitely doing mine when I’m able to get back home 👍🏼 nice work 👍🏼
Fantastic job sir. 👍🏼🇺🇸
Doing this tomorrow first thing. Thanks for being very detailed for me. Most videos jsut assume you know what they’re talking about. I’m trying to learn about my Cummins idk much about owning a diesel, my first one so we’ll see how it goes
Been following you on instagram for years. Im gonna be doing this on my 3rd gen soon. Pulling batterys out to start tractors have taken a toll on my battery ends. Great video man.
It’s even more important to have good connections on the 3rd gen because your alternator charge wire goes to the passenger side battery but your truck reads volts off the drivers side, so with a bad crossover connection it will boil the passenger battery trying to charge the drivers
Found that out the hard way with a buddies truck
thats true happen to my 3rd gen HHk
Great content!
Great video
Helped me figure out what the hell I was doing! Thank you!!
Glad I could help!
Great video. These good clean connections on a dodge 2500 is absolutely necessary especially when you get in to the 2002 and above models. Just a slight bit of corrosion or terminal being slightly loose on either battery Will cause the ECM/TCM to go nuts.
Definitely! My buddy had a bad connection for his crossover cable and because the alternator wire charges the passenger battery but reads voltage off the drivers it boiled the passenger battery!
@@Hazardous-Hotrod-Knowledge
When I get home I think I’m gonna redo all my battery connections. Just a simple issue is a bad connection with calls shifting problems in an automatic. Mine is a 2002 dodge ram with a Cummins diesel.
My truck is in the dealership right now because it won’t start. They say the cables are bad and want $2100 to replace them. I think I’ll do it myself after watching your video
Holy SHIT that’s insane!! Glad to have saved you a couple bucks man!
I work with electronics and to stop the end wires from fraying like on the 2/0 cable end where it's tight in the cable eye, you can solder the end of the wire before soldering to the eye. Gives a nice connection with no risk of wires fraying out, assuming you weren't smashing it in a vice after lol
Great advice!
Good Job!!!.....Nice and Neat!!
Thank you! Drives me UP THE WALL when the battery terminal ends are a mess, just doing my part to keep engine bays clean :)
This is super helpful. Will be doing this soon for my 3rd gen. Quick question though. Grote sells a pack of solder slugs for $85 😳. Where did you get your solder slugs? Did the clamps already come with them? Thanks!
Ya it’s ridiculous what they want! I believe I got mine from traction truck parts but maybe there’s some you could get online for cheaper?
I just did this on my 2009 3500 and it made a tremendous difference on everything from start up to charging I thought in the beginning that I might need a new alternator turns out mine is perfectly fine just oxidized cables
The common rail trucks really don’t tolerate bad connections vs the older dodges, I feel like a lot of the electrical problems they hav rare caused by poor connections
Thanks for the video, guess I can get rid of nail I have wedged between the post and the terminal.🤣
Hah! Never thought of doing that! My go-to has been vice grips with a welding glove overtop 🤣
Dropping some motor oil on it all helps
Happen to know what gauge the original wire from the positive cable to the fuse box was?
You can get a full battery cable replacement set from Diesel Power Products for around $300.
THANKS
Can you do a indepth video on the grounds and the (W-T) mod?
Thank you. Could you please do an installation of a battery and show exactly what wires attach to the positive cables, on driver's side, that attach to the battery terminal and the order the extra wires have or if they have a specific order they need to be in. For instance the cable that goes from One battery to the other I see you have them separated by nuts in between but the wire like that and the other wire on the other side with the blue how many is there supposed to be cuz my mom has a bunch of them because she has her wires for her camper attached to it but her camper is not on the back of her truck right now. So i don't know what's what. video
Feeling your pain...Mom
You should have heated the wire along with the terminal. Doing it your way can cause a cold solder joint, causing unwanted resistance.
did this for a customer on a 2006 ram 2500.
Get a proper crimper for those ends. Temco makes a great one for not a lot of money. That vise smashing looks ghetto as hell.
You aren’t wrong haha! I’ll put it in my notes to pick one up, was kinda working with what I had haha!
Where are you located?
up in edmonton alberta
No need for fuzable links?
I’ve had my buddy leave his grid heaters on for so long that it broke the grid heater metal pieces so I’m not entirely sure what the ampage requirement is to break them haha
You’d have to probably straight bolt the grid heater wire to the engine block and near light the wires on fire to trip them
Audio amp wire is often made out aluminum. Using aluminum for a battery cable is not a good idea. It's conductivity is substantially lower than copper and it melts at about 1200f.
Do you think it would ever get to 1200*F though? The only time I can think of it getting to something like that is a really poor connection and like 3 wires only making contact
@@Hazardous-Hotrod-Knowledge IDK....I would think you would melt the lead battery terminal first. Though if you ground out the cable you have the potential to flow 2,200 amps to ground. That's 26 kilowatts of heat. Which should be more than enough to melt the cable.
The main issue is aluminum can only carry probably not half the amps of copper. They use aluminum wire in car amps because it's cheap and having crazy thick wires look cools. Copper cost 4x the price of aluminum, If auto manufacturers could substitute aluminum for copper in battery cables they would already be doing it.
I put group 31 batteries in my Dodge no more automotive crap fittings just have to cut the front of the battery tray out.
Gotta watch out with them, some are pretty tall and I’ve had a buddy’s truck arc out on his hood 🤣
3rd gen cables are the worst. They will throw so many codes and give off so many flase flags when they go bad
The worst thing is the crossover on them from the passenger battery to the drivers and how the alternator charge wire goes to the passenger battery. If the crossover is bad then the PCM reads low voltage on the drivers battery and boils over the passenger side battery trying to bring voltage up. Had it happen to a buddy
@@Hazardous-Hotrod-Knowledge It happened to me, spent so much time chasing it down, the cable looked fine but it wasn't. Eventually it destroyed the alternator but putting so much h strain on it
TURN OFF THE MUSIC!
HAHAH....that's actually what I loved about the video....go on now.
Welding cable has a built in resistance to it
How would the copper cable know that ?