I am trying to install an optima Red Top in the X, but have encountered a few problems. The most critical is the fact that the positive cable connector will not tighten down on the terminal no matter how tight I make the bolt. This means that sometimes I have to wiggle the positive cable in order to get good contact before the truck will start. Does anyone have any solutions on how to make this connection tighter? A related problem is that since the battery in not exactly the same size as the stock unit, the positive cable does not have enough slack or flexability to reach the terminal well. This is the case either with or without the battery height spacer installed. Any suggestion on how to free up some play in that cable so I can get it to sit flush on the terminal?
TIA

The cheapest route, and probably what I would do until you get a better solution figured out would be to shim the battery post with some pieces of metal. You can probably find some thin metal lying around that you could cut to use for that purpose.

I dont know anything about optima batteries, but I would think they would have side post connections too, where you could screw in a battery post into the side. If you used those instead of the top posts, the cables might reach better.

Was this battery new or used? If it was used maybe the previous owner filed the crap out of the terminals to clean them, making them smaller? If that is the case, the terminals may screw out and you could probably order a new set from optima, or your local parts store may carry battery posts.

If the battery was new, you should be able to get a new battery connection terminal for your cable from an auto parts store or a car audio shop. Keep in mind you are going to have to crimp it and crimp it good if get one. Very tricky to do it right on the truck.

You can get a length of wire from any car audio shop to replace yours if it needs to be that much longer. However, a lot of times, manufacturers use clips to hold wires taught and out of the way. Follow the battery wire back as far as you can, and see if it has any clips holding it to the fender or something... popping one of those off might give you a bit of extra length.

These are all ideas, I dont know a thing about optima batteries.

On my 2000 X, there is a black zip-tie that was holding down the positive cable to a bracket. I just cut the zip-tie and gained enough room to place the clamp on the terminal.

I also cut a little piece off the plastic covering from the Positive cable too to make it fit better against the battery. Is it perfect? NO. But it gets the job done.

Hope that helps.

Stone

Thanks for the replies. What I did was put the battery in without the spacer and cut the zip-tie that holds down the positive cable to get some flexibility. I also found that the positive will sit flush on the terminal better if you rotate it a bit to clear the side terminal lump. To get the connector on the positive to clamp tighter, I removed the little washer/spacer that is in the middle of the connector. If you look at the connector this spacer is in the middle of the spilt that the bolt goes through. I don't know why it is even there, but mine seems fine without it. Once I got the terminals clamped down I was still able to use the stock hold-down bracket and hooks. The hooks are almost all the way down on the threads, but it's tight.

The other problem I encountered during this battery swap was that my negative cable connector was destroyed and the stock cable is too damn short to just take another replacement connector. So what I did was I got a replacement cable with a ring connector and attached it to the bracket on the inside of the fender where the stock cable is clamped down. The stock cable is like 2ga. wire and the replacement that I got is 4ga. The truck seems to be working fine now, but I'm wondering if this is going to be a good solution in the long term. Would I be better off getting a stock replacement cable? I want to be sure the the ground connection is strong and I'm not sure if that connector will cause extra resistance or something (I know little about electricity). Any comments?

for the most part you are fine. The starter is the largest amp load on the stock battery cable. Winches have their own cables, and hit both sides of the battery. The smaller cable will cause a larger voltage drop then the stock cable. I wouldn't worry about it unless you are having cranking problems.

There's no way the stock cables are "like 2ga"! That's HUGE!!! I believe it's around 8 or 10 ga. Honestly, if you're going to be doing any type of stereo, winch, or huge row of lights, you might as well upgrade the wire from the alt to the battery to at least 4 ga and do the same with the ground.

Actually,2 gauge isnt that "huge".
AWG table
Edit: Better Site

2 ga is huge for factory wiring. Considering most vehicles don't have over a 90 amp alternator, anything over 8 gage is overkill.

The factory wiring is bigger than 4ga. I know this because I bought some 4ga connectors with the thought of extending the stock wiring and they would not fit. Also I eventually ended up using a 4ga replacement wire from the Neg. terminal to the ground point on the body and that wire is thinner then the stock wire. That's why I was concerned that the replacement wire might not be thick enough, because it doesn't match the stock wire.