New battery leads for Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ

Brian's ZJ Cherokee: fed up with the standard Jeep battery connectors, the ones that are on the main red and black wires, he replaced them. These standard cables have connectors made from lead, which over time tend to develop cracks. The situation is no doubt made worse by the vibration in the engine compartment, and would, if left, most likely fail when you least expect it or when its most inconvenient!

The first job was to source a suitable replacement pair of leads. Brian found an Audi A4 in a scrap yard that have a nice connector fastening mechanism. Having decided on these, he removed them with a length of cable attached. Next: removing the existing Jeep connector, this was achieved by melting them off with a blow torch. Sounds somewhat over-the-top, but they are made of lead, so melt quite easily. The Jeep cables are attached to the new connector via a screw. The already attached audi cables are used to feed high current paths - to the body earth and starter motor.

All in all quite a neat job, and the Audi connectors have the bonus of having a screw connection, so it's easy to add new connections directly to the batttery in future, if we need to.

#batteryleads #jeep #zj #replacement #audi