Thinking it is time to say bye to my old faithful jumper cables. I have two sets, both dating back to the 1980s. Four-gauge, thirty feet each. They have served me well and in a couple of cases had to chain both sets together to jump either my rig or someone else. But, they are big, heavy and take up a fair amount of space. I very seldom carry them in the cars anymore, I have jump packs. If I go through with it, they will join the timing light and the tach, which I decided a few years ago were no longer needed. I blame it on Chapman's post to a newbie about what to do about a dead battery.-- which reminded me .... ChapmanF Senior Member And in the days before compact jump boxes, we would try to flag down a friendly-looking passerby who might have jumper cables. #3 ChapmanF, Wednesday at 11:15 PM
I had my dad's friend make me an EC5 pigtail with lugs to attach directly to the 12 volt in the rear passenger quarter. Conveniently, when my 12 volt died 2 years, ago, I just connected the jump pack, pushed the start button and drove off. Since the pigtail had a diode that prevents back feed from the car's charging system to the jump pack, I just left it connected, until I went to Batteries Plus and got a new battery.
One thing I’m thinking should be done with jumper cables, is completely separate them. Then, starting with positive: completely connect both ends, THEN go get the negative cable.
And there's probably enough copper in each of them to make twelve sets of modern-grade ones. Recycle responsibly and pocket more than a few pennies.
For anyone in Vancouver, BC: there’s a place called “Happy Stan’s”; they take most scrap metals, wiring, small motors/appliances, old mowers and barbecues, and so on. https://happystan.com/what-we-recycle/
