Wiring of your car.....????

[John Poling]

Paul,

Soldering is in my opinion the absolute best as long as you know how to solder properly and not overheat the wire, overheating will make the wire brittle and it will break a lot easier. What I did on mine was not the soldering route but regular crimping with a top-o-the-line crimper and then used a heat shrink-able tube with a "heat activated" glue inside so that when you heat it up with a heat gun to shrink the tube over the wire/terminal joint it also seals out the environment so that nothing can get into the joint to cause corrosion. An added benefit of the heat shrink is also that it will give you a strain relief on the joint it is applied to so that the wire will not pull out of the terminal you crimped on.

I don't have experience with liquid tape although I have heard of it. I would suggest the heat shrink over anything else. You should be able to pick it up at an automotive or home electrical supply store. I just realized you're in Australia so I don't know how to help you on where to find it or if it is even available there. I know it is plenty available in the U.S..

Running your battery in your trunk is fine and I would recommend a "00" gauge cable for both negative and positive, I would also recommend if you have access to a solder pot to solder dip the terminals on the opposite end of the actual battery connections onto the cable and heat shrink them as well. As far as Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI), you probably won't have an issue with this as you should run your positive battery cable on the frame under the car and the rest of your wiring should be no where near the main positive battery cable to cause this. Just remeber that this cable is the supply chain of your whole electrical system and if you decide to use your frame as the main ground that it is in fact the ground, therefore make sure that you use a heavily insulated cable clamp to route your positive cable on the frame rail.

With wiring on a car, remember that everything has to have a good positve feed and a better ground otherwise your components will not be reliable.

Any other questions? Just ask.

John