Battery cable routing

[wilkin250r]

My engine compartment has been hacked to death by the previous owner. It was obvious he was just building a truck to beat to death, as cheaply as he possibly could.

My cables are shot, and they're obviously not stock, so I'm getting ready to replace them. Where/how do you have your cables routed?

The positive will obviously go to the starter, with some sort of lead routed off to the fuse panel. Where do you guys have your negative cables mounted?

[Nin92]

My negative cable is attached to the engine block behind the alternator. Also have one going from the block to the frame. Never can have too many grounds

[donut]

I think mine's run to the top of the alternator bracket. Small ground to the core support near the battery. Believe there is one braided ground from firewall to the back of the passenger side head. I may have one from frame to block, but odds are I put it there.

[wilkin250r]

And my negative lead is currently attached to my alternator bracket, also.

Anybody know what the stock location is?

[MountainGoat1966]

I have seen almost all top alternator brackets (with the adjuster slot) have a threaded hole for the ground connection. That is the most common OEM location.
Sometimes the threads get stripped out and you need to put a nut on the bottom side and tighten it well.
And as others have said, you can never have too many ground connections, especially since the body is insulated from the frame by rubber mounts.

[donut]

Most that I've seen are bolted to the top of the alternator bracket. Various engine pics on this site seem to confirm this.

[hatzie]

You could take it as an opportunity to reroute the starter wires in a safer location.
I was installing a 6.5L diesel engine so I got rid of the wires running down the bellhousing in that steel tube next to the exhaust. I routed longer replacements for those three wires to a universal starter solenoid next to the battery tray.
The starter now has a single 4ga SGX wire along the oil pan just like the original did in vinyl covered P-clamps. It runs from the universal starter solenoid to the starter batt terminal. It only has juice when the universal solenoid is tripped so I added a 14ga loop from the batt terminal on the starter solenoid to the S terminal so it engages as soon as there's juice from the universal solenoid.
The new wires run neatly along the firewall and inner fender in split poly loom up away from the exhaust manifold instead of right behind the headpipe.

The Universal solenoid has four wires on three studs.

1. Main battery power stud.

   a. 4ga RED SGX battery power from the RH battery + side post.
   b. Main power feed for the cab that usually runs from the starter to the firewall junction block. (14ga fusible link wire that's pulse welded to 10ga Red SXL wire with adhesive heat shrink cover for the welded splice and both ring terminals)

2. 4ga SGX High amp feed to the starter only energized when ignition switch is in START.
3. 12ga longer replacement SXL Purple "Start" wire from firewall bulkhead plug.

The RH to LH battery cable runs neatly along the radiator mount in split poly.
The RH & LH SGX black ground cables run to a stud welded on the frame and a heavy copper braided ground strap runs from those frame studs to the block and a 12ga black SXL wire runs from that stud to the radiator support ground stacks on both sides. There's another ground strap from the bottom of the cab to the frame.