HELP! Battery Cable not long enough for new battery

[TerraCrawler]

Car is 2014 4Runner Trail

Just bought a Odyssey 31M-PC2150ST

The cables are a few inches too short to reach the terminals. There is a marine terminal of sorts that actually attaches to the battery. And the the battery cable attaches to that. I am hoping someone makes marine terminals that are longer, that would do the trick. Another thing I thought about doing is buying a copper bus bar and insulating most of it, about 3" long, that would work.

I have heard of others running the 31M-PC2150ST without issue. Googling online I see that some of the 31M-PC2150ST batteries have the positive on the right and some on the left. If mine were swapped then perhaps it would work, I would just spin the battery around and the terminals would be a tad bit closer.

They sell small 10" battery pigtails at the auto parts store, but that seems ghetto. I will call Odyssey tomorrow but I am hoping someone has some ideas on what I could do.

 

[riceandpho]

i think i seen some pics of the battery cables being stretched to the sides a little,especially the positive part, and the negative is stretched out in the middle.

 

[riceandpho]

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/group-buys/216396-northstar-battery-group-buy-2-0-a-6.html


that guy did some cables

 

[nglayton]

Amazon

Either Amazon or the local auto parts store should have some 6 inch cables. I found some locally. But Amazon might be easier for some.

Red or Black

 

[TerraCrawler]

Either Amazon or the local auto parts store should have some 6 inch cables. I found some locally. But Amazon might be easier for some.

I did find some. But is this ghetto or no? I mean having these cables as pigtails coming off the battery, certainly it gives enough slack I just worry if its the right approach. I know having cables too tight creates all sorts of problems, such as potential cracked posts.

I did get to the bottom of what happened. Turns out people running the Odyssey 31M have one that has Left Positive. Odyssey recently switched production to "industry standard" Right Positive. The posts are not center on the battery, so that switch means the post is now over an inch further away, and its a deal breaker for our vehicles. They only recently made this production change, so you can still find older Odyssey's out there probably. I am trying to figure what to do, return battery, or use pigtail or what. I wish someone made those marine post terminals in my picture longer, a marine post terminal adapter that was about 1-1.5" longer would do the trick.

 

[funshot]

I had extend the wires for my group 31 Odyssey battery; cut, strip, butt connect, crimp, heat shrink. Not to hard. It took about 10 minutes. 15 if your count the cussing and moaning when i burnt my finger with the heat gun :frusty:

 

[greatape]

I did find some. But is this ghetto or no? I mean having these cables as pigtails coming off the battery, certainly it gives enough slack I just worry if its the right approach. I know having cables too tight creates all sorts of problems, such as potential cracked posts.

I did get to the bottom of what happened. Turns out people running the Odyssey 31M have one that has Left Positive. Odyssey recently switched production to "industry standard" Right Positive. The posts are not center on the battery, so that switch means the post is now over an inch further away, and its a deal breaker for our vehicles. They only recently made this production change, so you can still find older Odyssey's out there probably. I am trying to figure what to do, return battery, or use pigtail or what. I wish someone made those marine post terminals in my picture longer, a marine post terminal adapter that was about 1-1.5" longer would do the trick.

Signal, If you plan on "overlanding full time" get use to some so called "ghetto" solutions at times...

 

[TerraCrawler]

Signal, If you plan on "overlanding full time" get use to some so called "ghetto" solutions at times...

Well, usually when ghetto gets introduced it seems there is a better way, but a compromise was made, maybe just temporarily. I definitely would rather have things done in the best way possible. I am not going into the woods with the wife, dog and kids for a weekend getaway, I will be traveled deep and solo at that, so its very important to me that I minimize as much potential issues as possible.

I came to terms with extending the cable. The only part I don't like is that there is quite a bit of metal as an intermediate link, and I just wrapped it well and good in electrical tape.....a bit large for even my 2awg heat shrink, down the road if I find very large heat shrink I can hit it up with some of that.

Came out decent:

 

[jrandom]

I have the same battery (I had the Diehard 31M before it and it died hard), first turn your battery around 180 and add some post adapters on the "marine" connectors.

I only have a pic of the cracked DieHard but case you can see the post adapter I am talking about. They just screw on to the threaded posts. 100% stock. No f'ing around with you factory cabling, unless of course you want to. Then you can pick up a couple additional post clamps and wire your accessory system to those.

 

[TerraCrawler]

I have the same battery (I had the Diehard 31M before it and it died hard), first turn it around and add some post adapters on the "marine" connectors.

I only have a pic of the cracked DieHard but case you can see the post adapter I am talking about. They just screw on to the threaded posts.

[MENTION=99702]jrandom[/MENTION] The DieHard Platinum as you may know has been discontinued, which is unfortunate. I can't just spin my battery around, if you read above, Odyssey has changed their production of the 31M-PC2150ST. It is now Left side positive as opposed to right side. This makes a world of difference. It puts the terminals further away on the 4Runner. Spinning the battery around would make things worse, as now I would have negative on the positive side and vice versa. Its possible there is a Group 31 out there that is a better fit, but I really like having the dual posts. I am making use of the marine posts, I have my accessories going there for now which is nice. In the end, I think it came out nice. I added about 3" of 2AWG cable with lugs on it to extend the cables. I wrapped the part where I coupled in electrical tape.

 

[jrandom]

lol yeah I totally missed that! :redface: That explains it, I should have noticed via your pic/post. I replaced the DieHard with an Odyssey 31M-PC2150 just last fall, and the terminals were the same. Hence my confusion. I guess I will be buying a Northstar when this one dies.

 

[nglayton]

I did find some. But is this ghetto or no?

I don't think it's ghetto, but hey, what do I know?

Personally I like the marine screw/bolt terminals a hell of lot better that the normal battery posts. Usually marine grade electrical equipment is considered to be heavier duty, better quality that just normal stuff. If the marine screw/bolt terminals are good enough for marine applications, they are good enough for me and my 4R.

I have more confidence in cable being bolted to the battery, than I have with the cables being two hunks of tin/lead alloy or dis-similar metals, just squeezed together semi-tightly. It just seems those tin/lead terminal connectors are so freaking cheap, I can never tighten them with out stripping or breaking them. Give me a couple of grade 8 nuts and bolts and I know it's not going to break or stretch, etc.

If you look at the OEM battery cable connections, the cable is bolted to a standard battery connector, that then slides down on the tin/lead post, that then gets squeezed to that post.

I see nothing ghetto about adding 6 inches of length to the OEM cable and then bolting it directly to the battery.

If you work the angles on your setup, you can get that OEM cable to lay in place pretty much like factory, add some split loom to cover the extended connection and you will be the only one who knows the cable is extended. Personally I would just bolt it to the marine connection and skip the posts. The will use up some of the extra length in the cables and more importantly eliminate one set of connections. The less connections you have, the more reliable it will be because of fewer spots to fail.

Of course you need to remember what was done when trouble shooting, but that shouldn't be too hard.