I'm in the process of replacing the battery cables on my '86 and having a little trouble figuring out the routing. I know the pos goes to the starter, but it looks like it connects or goes through some sort of junction bolted to the frame. I'm assuming that the junction block needs to be removed in order to complete this. I can't see at all where the neg goes after it bolts to the body. I get the impression that it goes to the same junction and then the starter, but not sure. Anyone know?

 

it isn't a junction it is a rubber block bolted to the frame that holds the wires solidly. If you have the old cables usually all that is wrong is that the terminal end is bad. the positive cable has a brass end that is designed to snugly fit the starter as does the negative. If you take them to a battery shop they can crimp on a new terminal end. The negative (ground) cable originally had a squarish piece of copper with an 8mm hole bored in it which was crimped on the cable about 6 inches from the terminal. this is to ground to the body which is highly important on these cars. grounding through the starter is not a reliable ground. If the square copper is missing buy a short cable that you can bolt first to the frame and then run the ground wire from that bolt to the starter. a 10m/m socket on a long extension should reach the bolt holding the rubber block. look directly behind the battery and you should see an 8m/m tapped hole for the ground bolt. the six mm hole is for the holddown bracket. this site no longer lets you post pics or I would attach one. there is one lurking around the site but i have no idea how to find them. Buy an interstate battery - they are really fine batteries and will far outlive any other battery made for like 10-20 bucks over Wal-Mart. Be sure you have a good solid hold down bracket a battery sliding around everytime you turn a corner is a bad thing.

 

Thanks for the detailed response! I dug into it and got the cables replaced this afternoon. I had already purchased the new cables because there were a few cuts in the old ones. Probably could've gotten by with new ends but...

It wasn't too tough, just a bit time consuming. Nissan sure uses plenty of wire ties!

 

did you ground to the body before going to the starter? this is very important for reliability of the electrical system in general and the electronics in particular. (still get crap from the wife unit when the 85T died on the ferry over to the penninsula)

 

Yes, it's grounded to the body. The body grounding lug is build right in to the cable, so I made sure I cleaned everything and hooked it back up the same as OEM.