I found that there is a short/break in my pos. battery cable. It wont start or get ignition power until you wiggle the pos. cable. Now where its on the battery, farther down.
What size wire would you recommend?

Thanks all.

 

4-Gauge should be more than enough to do the job. Oreily's and Napa sell it by the foot, but you can get Welding cable for a little cheaper in the same gauge. It's highly recommended and everyone says it works really well.

What I'm using in my car for the battery relocation is 3-gauge THHN 90 degree Celsius building cable. It's entirely copper like the welding cable, pretty easy to work with and won't flop around. If you put a bend in it, it will stay that way untill you tell it otherwise. US building codes are pretty picky about how grippy the cable is too, so in order to meet the codes, it has to slip through walls quite easily.

Any Lowes/Home Depot will carry it, shouldn't be more than $1.50 per foot. For my project, I bought 20 feet, did the math and found that it'd be good for up to 115 amps sustained. A FD alternator would burn out before the cable would be run beyond its safe limit. Since I'm using a 130 amp Taurus Alternator, it'd have to max it out to push the cable too hard and the alternator would crap out quick if that happened. But since there's a 100 amp fuse on the cable (required for battery relocation), it can't.

 

6 gauge handles 100 amps, 8 gauge 73 amps based on this table: http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm
Your alternator puts out 70 amps. A starter might draw more but it doesn't matter because it's temporary. Ya 4 gauge (135 amps) is popular for a little overkill. 8 gauge has 0.0032 ohms per 5 feet which means a voltage drop of 0.22 V over that distance at 70 amps. 6 gauge 0.14V, 4 gauge 0.09V.

So IMO 6 gauge or 4 gauge. Not that thicker wire would hurt, it'd only add a pound maybe.

 

I want to keep it in its same location. After the battery where does it go? I just really want to drive my car. Dunno how this happened on its own without being driven.

 

There was no short, after furthr looking, there was a black plug near the fuse box in engine compartment that had come loose. Thanks to all for the help...

 

A single wire colored black and like the one in the jpg attached? Feeds power to the ignition switch which in turn feeds the interior fuse box.

 

Yes sir! Thats what was unplugged, well almost unplugged but didnt have good contact. Haven't driven it for a while. Must have came loose taking out the battery for the basement before sitting.
Plug isn't damaged, dunno.

 

That plug/connector is to feed your Engine Bay fuse block.
If that Baby is not connected you have pretty well nothing being fed the 12 volts it needs.
I forgot about that wire when swapping out engines,and it took me a bit,just had to retrace steps.But I got it.
some of the electrics would work with the wire disconnected,but it is the Main stuff,like the EGI,Lights,retarctor motors and of course the main Feed to the Engine fuse..(won't start if that wire is off,,turn key to start,,NOTHING,,no click,no buzz..nada).