Now with the 2009 season over, I'm starting to prep the car for the 2010 season. First thing on the block is to replace the battery cables. The original cables are decayed and the insulation was rotting off. The cables go from the battery, through the firewall and then across to the driver side behind the engine. The negative cable is attached to the block along with another connection using a 6mm hex bolt. The positive cable continues on and then below the block to the starter solenoid.
Removing the positive cable is easy. Unbolt the connection on the solenoid and then pull the cable up. Next, pull it through the firewall and then remove from the car. The negative is harder. There isn't a lot of room where it's attached to the block. I used a 4 inch extension and a rachet to do it but be careful to tape the flywheel inspection hole first. If anything drops in to that then it's a ton of work (i.e. drop the tranny tunnel and the clutch etc to remove it).
I bought replacement cables at Advanced Auto parts. A 36 inch negative cable and a 78 inch positive cable. Installing the 35 inch cable is very difficult. The allen bolt to attach it to the block is in a very confined space. My wife ended up doing up, smaller hands helps. Again, BLOCK UP THE FLY WHEEL INSPECTION hole.
While doing this, I noticed my fly wheel sensor cables were starting to come apart also. The plastic was brittle and had broken so thats the next job.
Given the heat exposure on these cables, I used DEI heat shield tubing around the battery cables to help with this so the current cables last. I'm currently waiting for two more 3ft sections of heat shield for the positive cable to arrive and then I'll do the positive side, I'm expecting that to be a lot easier than the negative.
This is what the negative replacement looks like installed. You can see the heat shielding. The new positive cable (red) is installed but no heat shielding yet.