Battery Cables on the Rivi

These are the positive and negative side post battery cables on my 1990 Buick Riviera.  The digital odometer comes on and off, which could because of a bad ground.  I have to track it down and first I'm going to start with replacing the battery cables.  I'm unfamiliar with this 6 cable set up.  By the looks of it, it seems that both sides have 2, 4 & 6 gauge cables coming into this?  They are molded into a block at the top, which can not be serviced because it's solid with no way of getting into them.

As a somewhat inexperienced backyard, DIY mechanic, I'm not comfortable with what I'm seeing on line, so I plan to get larger bolts for the battery, get custom length cables and mount them each with three separate cables instead of in combination.  This car has electronic everything, including the digital odometer.

If I had to guess, I bet that these were last changed when a Buick dealership last supported the year of my Rivi?  If that's true, these battery cables could be 28 years old with up to 140,000 miles on them?  They look clean, but remember it's a Buick.  It's had 3 owners and 2 of them were elderly.  It took 28 years for it to get up to 62,000 miles.  At 126,000 miles as it is today, the underbody is still mostly spotless.  And the engine is rather clean.

 

1990 Buick Riviera: New Battery

    The battery in my 1990 Buick Rivera was defective and I got it exchanged on warranty at Advance Auto Parts in Woodsfield, Ohio.  The battery is made by DieHard.  The model is "silver" and the part number is 34/78-4.  It has both side and top posts.  The dash cluster comes on and off, but it seems to get the odometer mileage right, perhaps because it's saved to the ECU and it's still measuring it?  But for the times that it doesn't work, I have an odometer app on my smartphone, which I set according the last time the Rivi's odometer was on.  

    That's currently reading 126,132.1 miles.  But every time the odometer comes back on, there's a discrepancy between the two odometer mileages and the app has to be adjusted from time to time.  As a GPS person, this could be due to the device's inaccuracies?   For instance, when driving or walking, the device gets it's distances right.  But when at a stop, the accuracy on where it's reporting it's position fluctuates.  When it happens, it plots a new anchor and the track would look like a knot if this data was extracted and overlaid in something like Google Earth.  If the GPS were recording a track when the sky is overcast, the accuracy could be +/- 52ft from the present position at any given moment.

New Universal Power Distribution Block (Junction Block) Works

    I haven't been logging like I should.  We had a little trouble with getting the replacement power distribution block at Advance Auto Parts in Woodsfield, Ohio because of the Labor Day weekend coupled with a day off by the 3rd party regional distributer taking a day off after Labor Day which the staff at Advance didn't know about.  There was some concern about the part being so small that in transit, it could slide around these personal vehicles transporting and cause it to slip into a crack or get hidden under a seat somewhere.  So, the employees ordered another one from another distribution point just in case.  Whatever ended up happening, I received this power distribution block on time as revised.

    I replaced the stock power distribution block in my 1987 Chevrolet (Chevy) G20 Sportvan with a Carquest Premium BWD JBA1001,which is not exact, but I got the van started with it nonetheless.  The part is also known as a "junction block."  I had to cut the wires out of the old one because it's poles were rusted.  When I tried to loosen the nuts, the bolts just turned.  And the other side was behind some tough plastic that I wasn't able to cut with a razor to try and see if they had bolt heads in order to use a socket and a wrench to force the nuts to turn.  That's when I decided that this thing just has to go.

The old stock power distribution block (junction block, shown below)

The new power Carquest Premium BWD JBA1001 power distribution block (junction block, shown below)

    I like the new block.  I used 10 gauge wire and some 12-10 terminal eyelets to jump the 12V power coming from the battery/ alternator from bank to bank to make it all work.  The stock one did this by way of a small brass plate that was mounted at the bottom of the old block's bolts.  I'm glad that I waited for this part because I was orginally going to fabracate one myself using a plastic container for some midget wrenches that I recently bought.  But as mentioned in a previous log that I was concerned that the plastic wasn't the right grade.  And with 12V at anywhere between 30A to 80A, 300 - 960 watts being channeled through it, that the new block would melt, or worse yet... catch fire 😟.

    So, I turned the van on and it worked.  I then moved it forward about 3 feet so that it looks like it moved.  But on another project, I think I broke off a bolt and it slipped off inside the intake manifold?  And I might be taking that off and go looking for it?  But when I pressed the accelerator pedal, I didn't hear anything rattling, which to me suggests that there's something else wrong?

    I am a backyard mechanic.  This is Matty DIY.  I am not certified, nor have I ever worked in an automotive repair shop.  I thought that all of you out there watching these logs should know this.

Delayed on Labor Day

 It is Labor Day today and I've been waiting for my universal power distribution block from Advance Auto Parts in Woodsfield, Ohio and this is Day 5 now.  It's expected tomorrow and I will likely log whether I get it or not as it's expected to be at the store tomorrow.  But if it's not, I'm going to cancel the order and either try to get it from one of the local mechanics, or buy one on the Internet.

Delayed and Continued

 My new universal power distribution block won't be in for at least another 29 hours.

Anyways, I'm coming up with a strategy for deploying diatomaceous earth in my house to get rid of the fleas, mites, mold and possibly rodents?  I just bought 5 cheap area rugs so that I can step through the living room.

Delayed Another 3 Days

I checked in with the Advance Auto Parts in Woodsfield today about the universal power distribution block that I have on order.  It was supposed to come in two days ago, but has now been delayed another 3 because today is Saturday and Labor Day is Monday.

Still Waiting

 My universal power distribution block didn't come in today as they stated.  Apparently it's not coming from the distribution center in Wheeling?  It's coming from the one in Pittsburgh.  But Advance gets its products from the nearby distribution points via a 3rd party company where the contractors use personal vehicles to move the goods.  And my last two orders were so small that they could have fallen in the cracks of some seat where they couldn't be seen?

I've been looking at my records in regards to the projects on my van and car, but I haven't been making enough logs.  So, I have to go off the top of my head.  And according to that, in the past, there has been about two things that I have ordered that I should have gotten days after I made them where I've had to cancel them 14 days later because there was no end in sight.