Jeepin.com

Installation date: 5/24/01

Let’s face it, the factory battery cables are OK at best; they get the job done, but they could use some help. Jeepers and Creepers out of San Francisco saw this as a place for improvement and came up with the beefiest battery cables you’ll find anywhere. Made of 2GA, 4GA, and 6GA welding cable, these things are huge! Each cable is wrapped in a neoprene jacket that is oil and solvent resistant. Battery cables were on my list of electrical upgrades, so I thought I’d give J&C’s cables a try. I also opted for to upgrade the terminals (which are military spec) with some quick release cam-bolts.

Originally developed for TJ’s, J&C has come out with a version of the cables for XJ’s. The install was pretty straight forward, just unbolt the old cables and bolt up the new ones. On the XJ, the cables bolt to the block near the coil, to the starter, and to the relay/fuse block. A couple of minutes was all it took to remove the OEM cables (which looked pretty wimpy compared to the huge cables from J&C).

The new cables went in without a problem. Since they are a much larger diameter, they’re not quite as flexible as the OEM cables, so I couldn’t route them the same way as the originals. This wasn’t a problem though, it just meant the cables ran a slightly different way. The secondary OEM positive cable has a double-bus connection on it. These are hard to come by so J&C used a section of flat aluminum bar to tie the two terminals on the relay/fuse box together.

Add some corrosion proof battery washers and the final product looked pretty good. The quick-release bolts make it handy to disconnect the cables when working on the Jeep, and it makes hooking additional wiring to the battery quicker and easier as well. J&C claims less drain when all the electronics are on, faster starting times, brighter lights with their cables. While I can’t say my headlights looked any brighter (that’ll get taken care of in another upgrade), starting time did seem to improve. Overall I’m very happy with the setup and would highly recommend the quick-release bolts for the terminals.

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