Check your Electrical Cabling!

[Waterloo]

Boy, we lost some good stuff on here, so as I am reading along I am remembering more and more of my issues with my ProStar, one of which was my electrical cabling from the batteries, the factory OEM cabling...

Open those battery boxes, get under the truck, and check those cables! I lost an alternator a bit ago, just happened to land right in my local TA parking lot as she failed. Got her in the shop and the kid installed a new one for me. When he was doing that, he checked the ground, and was surprised at what he found... The ground cable from the starter to the engine block was exposed, only a partial jacket on the cable and you could run your fingernail over it and it would just disintegrate, not much grounding going on, and the only reason this was discovered... I was a few miles from the house and told him not to worry about it, I'll fix it myself...

I took the truck home and could not believe what I found upon crawling under the truck, I was pissed. I found every, and I mean EVERY bit of factory OEM cable to be in the same, or much worse condition! I had one 0 gauge cable with nearly a foot of exposed copper. This one piece was 15 feet long, and was green from end to end! I was amazed that my truck even made it down the road, much less had not caught fire from what I discovered underneath that truck. All in all, I think I wound up purchasing around 80 to 100 feet of new copper in various sizes. And this stuff was not cheap!

I am the third owner of the truck, and at that point had only had it a few months. This truck lived its entire life, 700,000 miles like this until I lost an alternator and a mechanic found one green and crumbling ground wire...

So folks, if you are having any electrical issues, and or are working on your trucks, get under there and inspect those cables! And REMEMBER, this truck came from the factory like this! Shame on International!