Lead positive wire - what guage does it have to be?

[Jagir]

preamble: I have been chasing electrical demons on my 1980 GS400 for a while. The main issue is dying batteries - about one a year.

Having checked, cleaned, greased and replaced every connection and ground (when needed), I am almost ready to diagnose the stator. Today I bought the new battery for this purpose. When I removed the red 'lead' wire from the old battery, I found this (see attached)

Perhaps I won't need a new stator after all?
(I said this after every ugly connection or tiny bit of corrosion that I found)

My question is: to replace this 8 gauge wire, do I need to use another 8 gauge, or should I use something else? I wouldn't mind if it was a bit longer anyway.

I'm having a hard time sourcing red 8 gauge. I went to a bunch (7 to be exact) of places today to find red 8 gage wire and connectors: electronics stores, auto supply stores, shops, etc...

I ended up with a chunk of red 6 gauge and a black chunk of 8 gauge. The connectors I have look like 10 gauge.

 

[Mekanix]

Go with two smaller if you have to.

As long as the wires combined are equal or larger than the original it should be fine.

Bigger is better. but be reasonable.

Consider this, the 8 gauge wire is only for the starter. Its the other smaller 14 or so gauge wire that actually charges the battery and its also the same wire that power from the battery gets drawn from.

So the smaller one is the one that is constant and the large one is only used when starting. I'd say that bike was cranked allot for that lug to melt the plastic like that .

Solder all connections and clean them after with some alcohol or brake cleaner.

Dive into the stator papers anyways, there might be more to this.

And hey we have the same bike

Good luck