Building A Charging System - Take Charge! - Tech

I picked up a hammer-style terminal crimping tool from the local hardware supplier to crimp the terminals onto the cable. It works just like you'd think; a few hard smacks and you're good to go.

The next step is to protect the terminal ends using heat shrink tubing provided with the kit.

A little heat from a torch or heat gun causes the tubing to shrink up tight on the cable.

We picked up a 16-foot battery cable kit that included both positive and negative one-gauge cables to relocate the battery.

With our battery terminals in place, it's time to make the first cable. A die grinder with a cutoff wheel makes easy work of trimming the cable to length.

Next, the sheathing is trimmed using a razor blade and then the bare copper is inserted in the provided terminal.

The finished product is a nice, protected cable.

This is then connected to the rear junction terminal and run forward along the frame. While I was at it, I also made the ground (negative) cable that will run from the junction terminal to the framerail.

To ensure that the negative terminal gets a nice ground, the area surrounding the attachment point is ground down to bare metal. Then, a washer is bolted into place and the area around it can then be painted. Once the washer and bolt is removed, it leaves a nice, bare-metal area no larger than the terminal itself. This is incredibly important on chassis that are powdercoated or painted with multiple coats as the paint can inhibit the grounding capabilities of the entire system.