I was uncomfortable with the SMB wiring at the jumper stud. Three large cables were connected to the stud that was designed for one. The clearances between the hot terminals and the frame were too small for my taste so I decided to replace the factory stud with a 600 amp Blue Sea bus bar.

I am happy with how it turned out. It makes access to the ground point a little scary because the hot bar is mounted directly below it but that can be solved by removing the van and house battery cables from the bus bar before disconnecting the ground.

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Pictures of the completed fiberglass guard.

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Pretty slick set up.

^^^ uhgreed, i like as well!

where is this mounted on your van? i have a similar setup on the passenger frame rail that i dont really care for. pretty sure its oem ford, but i dont care for the design and would love to replace it with something similar to what you used.

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"understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of your car, oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of your car, horsepower is how hard your car hits the wall, and torque is how far your car moves the wall."

The van is an '06 diesel so the battery boxes are on the outside of the passenger frame rail. The jump stud was just aft of the battery boxes. The new bus bar is 7" long and is mounted where the jump stud was.

The battery ground is about 4" above it which is why I recommend removing the positive leads before the ground to avoid melting the end off of your ground cable.

perfect, thank you for the reply. mines a 7.3, so only one battery is in that spot, but im pretty sure that junction/jump stud is in the exact same place. appreciate you sharing your remedy. i will be following suit.

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"understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of your car, oversteer is when you hit the wall with the rear of your car, horsepower is how hard your car hits the wall, and torque is how far your car moves the wall."

Nice work! I've been wondering about a way to improve that jumper stud as well. Did the Blue Sea bus bar come with the mounting insulator and fiberglass guard as well?

Thanks

Phil

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2008 Quigley modified Ford E350 Superduty 6.0l
ScanGauge installation
Agile RIP package with Fox Shox, front & rear
SMB West motorized penthouse
Underfloor Aluminum storage box from northleftcoast
Aluminess Bumper-Mount Spare Tire Rack
Passenger & Driver swivel seat bases
Kenwood DNX572BH Navigation/DVD/CD Receiver

The 600 amp Blue Sea 4 terminal bus bar cost about $75 on Amazon and comes mounted on a plastic insulator. Blue Sea sells a cover for it but it is crap. I made my own from a piece of 2" fiberglass angle and some fiberglass nuts that I got from eplastics.com.l

Did the same but I also mounted mine on an a thick piece of UHMW as it might get close to the waterline when fording a stream. The bar is nice and I agree with you on the cheap cover...nice job you did there. BTW, I did install a new jump stud also on UHMW.

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2006 Ford 6.0PSD EB-50/E-PH SMB 4X4 Rock Crawler Trailer

Sportsmobile 4X4 Adventures..........On and off road adventures