The positive cable between my starter and alternator finally corroded beyond the point of use the other day 900T(Classic). Does anyone have one in decent shape they're willing to part with, or have some type of replacement that's homegrown that they swear by?
Please let me know what you'd charge me, including shipping to zip 46221
Thanks!
-L
What's wrong with a run of the mill thick cable from the auto parts store?
I assume it is the same as with most things in life: "The problem is not in the middle, but in the beginning and at the end..."
The terminals are the hard part, not the cable itself. :-)
Haven't checked the parts store. I am sure you can doctor one up with the right parts or is it really that difficult?
Plenty of places on Ebay sell terminals and lugs, etc. but I'm sure any auto-electrician has the right sized lugs for the starter solenoid end and a crimping tool to join a lug to a piece of cable.
Craig.
I've made one with 4gauge cable from the local home depot. However, the starter is pretty hot near where the cable is. I've made sure both ends are tighened down really good.
I checked with SAAB, and the replacement cable.. and no i'm not kidding was $70.00 (US). This little piece of shit 14 inch cable.. Crazy eh?
any ideas? My buddy said if the cable is hot on an end, the connection is bad. So I'm going on that line of thinking... but I can't be completely sure.
I made one with some 2 ga welding cable, heat shrink appropriate ends from QuickCable. I am sure that the parts and crimper will cost a LOT more than 70.00 to do it right, though. Try NAPA and see how much it is. I got my negative cable from them and it fit properly.
KeithG
LC wrote:
I recently replaced the main positive cable when I was trying to solve the problem with the starter in my 1983 900S 'sticking'. I tracked down that the thermo-time switch is allowing current to leak into the wire to the starter relay coil but getting back to the positive cable...
What I did was buy some heatshrink tubing the right size (about 3/4" or 18 mm diameter) and pushed a length of that over the lug that bolts to the starter solenoid. It doesn't give a lot of heat protection but what it does do is shrink just from the radiated heat off the engine (and in my 8V engine's case, heat from the exhaust manifold too), and that has now almost fully shrunk down over the back of the lug and the start of the cable itself.
It isn't going to form any sort of hermetic seal, but it'll assist the cable's insulation to protect the copper at the end where it's most susceptible to damage from contaminants and heat as well to some extent.
The original positive lead in my car (not sure if was Saab-OEM or even original equipment) was braided with some sort of polymer braiding which was absorbing every spec of oil and any other penetrating liquid that might come along!
That's definitely a good indicator that there is possibly a high-resistance connection as the resistance of a connection determines how much it blocks current flow (and this is what creates the heating as it's the same effect as a bar radiator).
High-current connections make this more problematic since higher current means more power (volts x amps = watts since it's a simple DC system) and more watts means more heating as the connection resistance increases. So even a small increase in resistance with a very high current can cause a big heating effect.
Regards,
Craig.
I don't have a feel for how heavy a 4 ga cable is. Presumably it is as thick as the original and is copper. Is it is, the cable you made should conduct the same amount of current as the original. Question is are you making good enough crimped connections between the cable and the blade to connect to both posts.
Sometims I wish I drive domestic cars. That's what you pay driving an import. A guy said that to me when I complain about prices of parts for my SAAB's.
Domestic cars (same applies here in Australia) are build to a price, not to a standard. Our C900's were built to a standard, so price wasn't really much of an issue since if you wanted a vehicle of a certain quality you had to pay the asking price. So parts and build quality are skimped back to the barest minimum required to meet various country's safety standards and nothing more.
The same still applies today in 2005, but it's watered down a lot with the generic makers (including GM) producing 'prestige' cars too. Toyata is the main one we see here in Australia with their 'Lexus' branding.
Perhaps GM should re-focus Saab on producing cars built to a high standard again since that's where Saab's traditional market base is.
Craig.
You mean the cable itself gets got ?
That's a sure sign of contact resistance. Could be the termination to the cable itself ( e.g. a crimp terminal gone 'bad' - you have to replace it ) or high contact resistance at the terminal itself ( clean terminal and re-tighten using some copper-ease ).
Graham
The heating increases as the square of the current. It's is probably not the connection of the connector to the object powered but the connection of the cable to the connector. It is very difficult to make as good a connection as the manufacturer does especially if you are trying to use their connector on home depot 4/2 or 4/3 romex.
Malcolm
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