Pigpen

damn that is ugly lookin

Ugly yes, but your rig is kind of like those margaritas Jerry brought to the river...non-existent!

Whats wrong with it? I can almost see it from my garage, sitting in the Goody's parking lot.

he told me last night, the starter had died down the road some time last weekend, he put a new one in it yesterday and drove it that far back to the dexter house before it died again, the positive battery cable melted to the exhaust pipe, and killed the battery. i'm sure robert can tell you more detail

Yup, starter died in post oak village apartments last weekend. Finaly got around to replacing it yesterday but positioned the battery cable poorly on the exhaust manifold so it melted through the insulation and killed everything. The battery took a charge and I got a new cable made so I'm gonna (hopefully...) go fix it tomorow and get it home.

Well something between the ignition switch and starter solenoid is ****ed so I just installed a jumper wire from the solenoid to the battery with a momentary push button. I'm prety sure the battery is hosed. I bought a new one from napa so between that and the button, pigpen runs again! Canadian...yes deffinately. There's a bunch of little **** that needs to be addressed before he's ready to wheel, but I'm gonna get as much as I can done this weekend and hopefully make a trip up to Gilmer before Clayton.

I am in the process of relocating the batteries to behind the passenger seat and need some electrical assistance. I am planning on running the battery cables through the floor at the back of the cab and then up the frame rail to the firewall, where I will have a single post junction block where I can hook up power to the starter, winch and all accesories. I have been googling looking for junction blocks and have found a few but am wondering about their ratings. Most say rated for 250 amps, but with two batteries I will have about 1500 CCA. How much power does a starter actually draw? Will the rating even be an issue if the cable ends are stacked on top of each other on the post (so power goes from terminal to terminal as opposed to terminal-post-terminal)? This is the best looking one I've found so far, mostly because it has a 1/2" diameter post where most others have 3/8" posts, it doesnt have a rating though.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q...2juncblock.jpg
It can be seen here
http://www.wiringproducts.com/index1.html

Also, what are y'all's thoughts on how to go through the sheetmetal of the cab? Is one of the dual sided terminals (as pictured below) that much better than a plain hole with a grommet? I will probably be using 2/0 cable to the junction block and 1/0 to the starter.
http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q..._block_big.jpg

I am also planning on having a battery kill switch mounted in the cab where I can reach it from the driver's seat, but I havent found one I like yet.

Then, onto the grounding situation. Is it absolutely neccesary to ground the batteries to the motor or would I be ok with a suitably heavy frame ground with the motor acceptably grounded as well? What about the winch ground? I have always heard you arent supposed to ground a winch's negative cable but I dont know why. I know this is alot of questions and I may ask on pirate too. Thanks

hmmmm, are you here? I'll go see.

Grounding to the frame and having the motor grounded to the frame works, just make sure you have good grounds.

The other stuff is personal prefernce I guess. I would just run the wire through a hole. I also don't see how you would burn up a 1/2" post so I wouldn't worry about the rating.

why??? Too much work and money for that rig... :flipoff2:

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Originally Posted by redcagepatrol

why??? Too much work and money for that rig... :flipoff2:

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Hater :flipoff2: There's a bunch of prety trivial reasons, the best of which is my effort to improve the overall look of the vehicle by adding tube work and inner (maybe even outer!?!?) fenders to the front. Looks like I'm goin to pirate.

looks like you have what you need to do a good job, use a grommet though, that through-cab terminal prolly won't like winhing annd many hard starts. The 2/0 will be plenty big for what your doing. x2 on engine ground

I really want to get new tires before Clayton, so I need to get on it now. I have 5 8-bolt hummer rims that I am going to wrap with 40's, either IROK's or TSL's. I'm leaning towards TSL's at the moment though, cause everyone and their mother has 40" IROK's. I was originally planning on running the rims unmodified with dually hubs on the front and spacers on the rear, but steel 4" spacers would cost around $200. So now I think I'm going to recenter my rims instead. I need to find a place to get all the normal parts; centers, studs, nuts and o-rings. I think I'm going to order the o-rings and nuts from USA 6x6 because most people get them with no problems, but I've heard too many mixed reviews about their centers. I havent been able to find new studs available anywhere. My search of pirate revealed that most people have just used a wheel stud, which I may end up doing if I cant find the correct ones.

Now, whats the best way to go cutting the old centers out? Clarke told me John Brown had the cardoc guys use a plasma to do it. Did it come out clean enough to not worry about turning on a lathe? I'm not worried about welding the centers in myself, me and my MM210 can handle it. For outer rim and stud protection I have the aTm rings that Ed got for me from the Copperhead Fab guy in Lubbock. They will be sandblasted and painted my standard silver and black.

get the new Mud Terrains - you have a credit card right? They make 40's, there just $600ea... :eek:

if your still wondering about junction blocks. the rating isnt dependant on the block or stud, but on the ring terminal and wire gauge. they are $9 a piece at academy in the marine section.