Battery Wiring

[CTG3]

Hello, I need some help with battery wiring. I bought a optima red top from amazon and I can not return it. Well turns out the terminals are on the front of the battery not the back. My battery wiring is very ratty to start as well. So now that my ratty wiring can not reach my battery terminals, I want to rewire my battery. I have seen some people do this very clean with few wires, My stock set up seems to have a huge about wires coming off the positive terminal. My questions are below.

 

1. What gauge wiring is needed?

2. What should the positive terminal be wired to?

3. What should the negative terminal be wired to?

 

Any and all advise is appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Slartibartfast]

Well, first off, it would probably be easier to resell the battery and get the right one than to rewire the leads and then have to remember to get the same type of battery that's not the one that's supposed to fit an R50 when this one wears out.

 

Do you mean the posts are back to front on the top so the leads are too short to cross over, or it's got side posts like Chevrolet uses? If it's the side post, IIRC you can get adapters that screw into the terminals to give you top-post style terminals that your stock clamps will attach to.

 

If you're hell-bent on rewiring, this might give you some ideas. Ground is the easier one, since it doesn't really branch off. Follow it to where it bolts to the body and there you go. Looks like the R50 positive terminal's got a thick red wire with its own tab and a clump of thinner ones sharing a tab, and both tabs bolt to the clamp. When I replaced the + clamp on my WD21, I just unbolted the fuse link wiring, cleaned it up a little, then bolted it to the new clamp. I had to cut and strip the cable end for the replacement clamp, but it looks like you don't even have to do that on the R50, just unbolt and re-bolt. Wouldn't be too hard to make a little cable extension if the post is on the wrong side. I'm not sure what gauge it is, but you could just grab a battery cable from the wreckers and cut it to length. If you're planning to install a winch, a massive stereo, or an upgraded alternator, this could be a good time to re-do the system with thicker cable. If not, I'd just sort out the connectors and call it good.