Battery cable replacement on a fox-body Mustang
I had some feedback last year on my battery cables. The feedback was that the clamps were aligned wrong. Not as Ford intended. The cables should be parallel to the side of the battery and not angled as I had them. Honestly, the way I did it always seemed right to me as it put less stress overall on the cable. It was more of its natural orientation. This is what I had –
No one had mentioned it, but I’d always been disappointed with the way the clamps on my cables appeared. The were pretty ratty and I have to admit that I’ve caused a bit of that when not taking proper care with removal and installation of the battery when I store my car for the winter. The negative one even had a slight crack in it.
Getting my car back on the road after this past winter required a new battery. My 2018 battery was pretty much done after last season. With the battery replacement, I decided it was time to replace the cables. I knew finding replacements that looked like OE would probably not be possible. Since I needed it ASAP, I decided not to pursue NOS and go with what Ford parts were available since they still had something. I figured it would be good to see what they were like and how they compared to OE and to write about it here. I could find very little detailed information about how the new cables compared to old.
For reference, these are the original and new part numbers we are talking about –
OE negative battery cable: E8SF-14301-DA
OE positive battery cable: E8ZF-14300-AA
Ford Motorcraft negative battery cable: E7SZ-14301-A
Ford Motorcraft positive battery cable: E8ZZ-14300-A
I can say that they are very different. The OE have a clear Ford part number on them, a much beefier clamp and some other differences in the cable itself.
The new cable has no Ford logo or part number on it. It does state “Julian Electric” in a couple of places on it. Here’s a close up of the section of the negative cable with the little plastic connector that connects to the body. On top (obviously) is the new cable –
They have all the same mount points, taped parts and connectors of the OE.
And, honestly, once installed it’s a much better appearance overall. I tried harder to get the alignment of my cables to be more “correct”. I searched for a picture of what this might have looked like from new but finding that is practically impossible. While I am out at shows this season, I will be looking closer at the cables and their orientation on the various cars I see.
