Lessons I learned about starter cable

[dmjlambert]

This is just a rant for your amusement. My truck is a1969 CST/10 with SBC 350 and TH400 auto transmission.

The positive cable that my truck came with from the previous owner was a cobbled together cable and ends, and the battery end was one of those bolt-on marine type or repair connectors shown in picture 1. After a few months, the truck was getting difficult to start, it would not turn over very fast and sometimes would not turn over. It had a fresh battery. After thinking about it and poking around under the hood like an amateur, I decided to get a super-duper Powermaster mini starter from Skip White. Well I put it in and it didn't work. Further troubleshooting revealed the bolt-on cable connection on that marine terminal was high resistance and just not worth a damn.

So, I went shopping at O'Reilly for a whole new battery cable. Picture 2. I thought the cable I found there hanging on a peg that was 4 GA with a top post heavy clamp would be very much like the factory cable and would be the last one I ever need. I was incorrect. After taking it on and off about 2 times, the clamp cracked near where the bolt goes through to tighten it, where the arrow is pointing in picture 3. The truck was starting, although it was noisy to start. I tried shimming it with various thickness shims to try to get it to sound better, and I watched youtube videos and read articles about using a paperclip to measure how the teeth fit, to try to learn and get it right. More about that later on.

I took the cable back to O'Reilly and exchanged it, installed it, and it cracked the first time I used it. I am not clamping it tight at all, just snugging it up. I took it back again, explained what was going on, and right there in the store we took another one out of the package and installed it on a core return battery. It cracked. Obviously these things are made of out what I will refer to as atrocious pot metal. Terrible. The guy offered me a refund.

So then I went on a trek to Napa, Autozone, Advance, and Pep Boys. Every single one of those places had the exact same package made by the same exact manufacturer. The clear plastic box that hangs from the peg was the same, and the cable is wrapped in the package by a white plastic band that says in red and blue type "Made in USA from foreign parts" or something along those lines. The card inserted in the package was stamped with the different brand names from the different stores (for example Duralast from Autozone). The shape of the cable terminals was exactly the same. I was asking the folks at the stores, is there something I can do to get a cable made by somebody other than that manufacturer, and they said all they can help we with is hanging right there. One of the stores had the same manufacturer with the different type of clamp shown in picture 4, but they didn't have the length I need for my truck (about 48 inch) and it looked pretty cheap-o.

I was getting pretty alarmed at the quality of this part that was available, it was absolute crap, and the same exact thing made from the same manufacturer hiding behind the brand names was apparently all that was sold by all the competition. I even went to NTB to see if they had cables, and they said no, and referred me to O'Reilly, Napa, Autozone, Advance, or Pep Boys.

I went to the local Chevrolet dealer parts department, and the guy I bought some other parts from and who was somewhat familiar with these old trucks listened to my story. He said he didn't have the cable for such as old truck. I was about to walk out, but he did some digging on the computer and came up with a picture of one he said he could order. It looked like what I needed. I asked him about the length, because it was an odd size, 53 inches, and perhaps they could get a 48 inch cable. He said it was listed by application, and that was what my truck called for. I said that sounds fine, and he ordered it up. A few days later it came in, and the terminal is quite a bit better, more heavy duty than anything I was working with before. It is $40 worth of beautiful. Picture 5.

Getting back around to the noisy starting I mentioned earlier, while I was struggling with the battery cable problems, the starter noise was getting worse. The truck began to be unreliable to start, because sometimes the starter would spin and not catch and turn over the engine. I crawled under the truck and removed the dust cover and found the flex plate teeth are chewed all to hell. Now I have another job to do on the truck, oh boy! I am putting the original starter back on it, and will learn a lot about shimming and make sure it is set up correctly so I don't chew up the flex plate again.

This all comes down to crappy battery cables, and lack of proper troubleshooting, leading to messing around with the starter, when I should have left that alone.

Proper positive battery cable for our trucks:
ACDelco ACD# 4BC53X GM# 88860050