Like the title says.

Im tired of messing around with the old lead connectors that always seem to give me issues after a year or two. Need something that can handle being tightened up and removed multiple times without failing.


Thanks

 

Couple of good choices.

The Military style is a solid choice, and can be seen on my Passenger side battery






I don't know what these are called, but they come in several different style of Termination bolts on the top.
I bought the ones with a Hex head bolt,
I have seen them Torx screw heads,
and with Allen head screws.





if you will note how clean they look, they are two years old in this pix and were sprayed with FLUID FILM.
WoolWax is another name for it,
same company makes both versions.

these, I bought off of eBay, I have seen them on Amazon also.

 

A quick disconnect on the negative battery terminals would save a lot of tightening / loosening / re-tighting cycles on bolt and terminals.

I haven't disconnected the positive terminals to my batteries since I last changed batteries, which was 6 years ago.

But I do disconnect the negative terminals weekly, via quick disconnects on the negative terminals. So that amounts to 100's of disconnect cycles.

My battery terminals are original OEM lead, 24 years old. Cables also original. In the photo below, the original lead negative terminal cannot be seen, as it is repositioned behind the battery, with a jumper to the knife switch disconnect.

 

If you decide not to go with a quick disconnect of some sort, many have installed connections similar to the ones below with good results.

 

x2 on the knife type isolation switch. This is a far better solution to disconnecting your batts as anything if this is what is driving your quest for better terminals. I have used mine so much that I need to replace them (10 years, super cold region, parking truck at airport for days/weeks at a time).

Also, I note @Y2KW57 did the same as I did: re-assemble the switch so it lies flat.

I use the same type of multi-connection terminal as @JohninOkie uses. But it gets tricky with the knife switch on negative. I didn't think of doing the jumper thing. Im going to see if I can reconfig doing that so I only have the knife switch to deal with. The batt fill covers on mine make it an awkward fit on the negative side.

 

Need a quality connector for full battery removal. I often times take the batteries out, be it for the winter, a different truck, or piece of machinery.

 

the only reason I did not use Disconnects, is finding one that can survive 800 amp starter draw current, and still let me have multiple Ground wires.

I have an APEX 12K Winch now, which I had planned on from the start, as the truck had a defunct Warn Winch that wouldn't work, no matter how much I tried to get it to run. So, I replaced it.

Where my truck is parked, it is near 120VAC so I just keep a Battery Tender on it.

My Kubota farm stuff is all isolated, key off, no battery draw..,. they can sit for a long time w/o a charger.

 

Your starter does not draw "800 Amps". Not even close.

 

AGM batteries ended that problem for me permanently.

Notice that I even have a full battery top cover on the passenger side. It looks Ford OEM, because it is, but Ford never installed a battery cover on the passenger side, in any model year Super Duty, regardless of engine. Ford only installed a battery cover on the driver's side, and only in Late 1999 - 2003 models with OEM air boxes. The Ford AIS eliminates the battery cover, and the Early 1999 airbox never incorporated one in the first place.

If I still had to deal with removing battery caps, I would eliminate batter covers altogether... as well as battery blankets, which nearly always get eaten up by flooded lead acid batteries that jiggle, boil, and spill their guts on top of the battery, that drips down and eats the skin of the battery blanket.

AGM batteries put a stop to all that battery cap opening crap. Now I can mount circuit breakers on top of the battery, with no need to disassemble in a decade's time. My last AGM batteries lasted 10 years. I expect these to last that long as well.

 

True. The instantaneous pulse cranking amps on start can range as high as 2,500 amps for a millisecond or two.

FTE member @TooManyToys. has measured pulse cranking amps extensively, and recorded these measurements with multiple multi-meters, on videos that might still be accessible via his YouTube channel.

 

it does for a few Milli-seconds....
when it is not turning, it is a Dead Short, until the Armature starts spinning fast enough to generate Reverse EMF






I ran several tests on a cold engine, and the results were all over the map, this is one of the best photos that I kept.

this was two years ago, and IIRC, the lowest INRUSH that was recorded, was ~550 Amps on a hot engine, just shut down maybe 5 minutes before the restart.

This is why, it is so Extremely Important, that the cables and connectors be clean and tight, so there is the Least Possible Resistance between the batteries and the Starter Terminal.

I have not recorded the INRUSH Voltage Drop between the Relay and the Starter, I felt that was more or less irrelevant when I saw it was capable of carrying 820 Amps when the Relay first closed.

 

My 25 year old, 235k miles 99 has its original cables, terminals, starter and solenoid. It only gets driven a few times a year now, and never started unless I'm going to drive it. I have an onboard charger and keep it plugged in. The last set of batteries lasted 7 years, these are 3 years old. I never have trouble getting it started even if it has sat for 6 months, which it frequently does. I care less what the "inrush" current is, as long as the circuit is capable of supplying the necessary current to the starter to turn the engine over fast enough to start. Mine does. It always starts as long as the the batteries aren't flat.

 

Im running the military ones. Seems to work ok. Had them on and off multiple tiime this year alone for various reasons. Easy to do. Make adding accessories easier to.

I switched as my passenger positive terminal was pouched. Cable was half rotted out inside of it. I cut and cleaned the stock wiring and crimped on barrel connectors. Redid all the battery terminals.

 

You won't get any better than these. Solid brass, crimp style in 2/0 wire guage.

 

The military style ones are easy to replace. I might do that on my original ground leads which have been overtightened too many times. The whole positive cable mess I replaced with an OEM unit and am just careful not to over-torque them, and those don't get disturbed as often as the negative ones...maybe once a year when I take the batteries out to clean and position swap them.