Is it possible to jump start my truck with jumper cables from a standing battery to direct battery wires.. and or from a car t

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Yes, although it generally works a little better if you connect the cable from the assisting battery's negative terminal to the "appropriate" jumping location, usually a lug near the midline of the engine. The reason is that provides a better ground than trying to connect to the dead battery's negative terminal. Modern U.S. cars are negative ground and there is no more direct of a method of grounding than directly clamping to some large paintless metal part close to the starter. Also, most batteries have way more than enough capacity to start their vehicle unless they are very old, so a relatively small car battery can start a truck easily as long as it is fairly new. I used to live in the...

jekern

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Sep 16, 2016
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it should be no problem at all, assuming you have decent (6ga. or larger) cables. The cheap 8ga. and 10ga. cables won't likely transfer enough power from a standing battery without waiting quite some time for your existing battery to charge up. Personally, I won't buy cables smaller than 4ga.
 


Yes, although it generally works a little better if you connect the cable from the assisting battery's negative terminal to the "appropriate" jumping location, usually a lug near the midline of the engine. The reason is that provides a better ground than trying to connect to the dead battery's negative terminal. Modern U.S. cars are negative ground and there is no more direct of a method of grounding than directly clamping to some large paintless metal part close to the starter. Also, most batteries have way more than enough capacity to start their vehicle unless they are very old, so a relatively small car battery can start a truck easily as long as it is fairly new. I used to live in the Dakotas and would often jump large diesel-engined vehicles with two batteries wired in parallel with my dinky gasoline F-150, as my gasser F-150 would start when it was -40 and their diesel trucks would not, they'd kill the batteries running the intake air heater or trying to start when their fuel had gelled up. I've also jumped combines and tractors as well, no problemo. Doesn't take much battery to jump an engine.

FYI, a typical light truck starter will draw something like 200 amps to start. It is possible to jump with small cables but you get a lot of voltage drop and the cables get hot in a hurry. A good cable is something like 1/0 or #2 which can handle those loads.
 
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