sorry to start a thread on this but i couldnt find this problem on the search.

Anyways i have a 84 stock gs 12a. and i figured i would replace the battery cables to see if that would improve anything and it ended up not. when i replaced the cables the voltage meter in my car is really low and when i turn on my lights my car over heats.?

im pretty sure i tighten everything but ill go through tomorrow and double check but other then that i cant think of what this problem could be...any ideas?

 

Is it actually overheating or could it be an erroneous reading on the gauge?

A bad ground can make the gauges inaccurate.

 

after thinking about it i think the gauge of the wire is too big from the orginal one.. stupid autozone person grabed the wires for me and stupid me for not checking and realizing this one so i just ordered wires off of mazdatrix.com maybe that will do it and to answer your question yes it was really over heating

 

Do a second ground on the engine hook. Then do the other ground on the strut post, my car reads 14 volts now. I also soldered all the connections, and used copper lugs on them. It worked great for me

 

Interesting bmeyer ill try that if the cables I ordered don't work

 

dude I also have the same problem! I was totally clueless because it started a couple nights ago when it started snowing and now it's just doing it randomly. I had to leave my car in a parking lot tonight because of this. I was thinking it's my belts that were loose.

 

Running a bigger gauge wire is actually better then the smaller wire. The factory battery wire is 4 gauge. I used 2 gauge for the ground and 4 gauge for the positive (couldn't find 2 gauge at Tractor Supply). The factory ground has a connection on the stock tower. I just ran a shorter piece from the battery terminal to the shock tower.

 

hmmm im gonna try runing a wire to the shock tower and seeing if that will help a little

 

yea i dont how but it worked i just used two 12 gauge wires and wired it to the drivers side of the body and now my car works great

 

It worked for me as well. I ran just a small wire from my battery ground to my strut tower and it works perfect now.