Technical Copper clad aluminum wire

Generally not....until it gets pretty bad, then the whole thing goes away.

Lots of snake oil being sold, because very few people understand that.

 

Most house triplex entrance cables are aluminum at this time . Most are owed by utility company , not the home owner .

Different subject on this question . If it were me I’d go all copper . If you choose not to use what you feel comfortable with .

I have installed some underground fence wire for my dogs that was super fine mesh stainless steel .

 

I recall many years ago taking off one of the battery cables from I believe a '70s Chevy and although it looked like copper, it was really light - I concluded it was copper plated aluminum, quite a surprise.
There was no problems with it though, I took it off for some other reason.
Still, like others, I would choose copper if I were buying wire.

 

Anything from Amazon (china crap) isn't going on any of my cars. Spend the extra few bucks and do it right. Hot roddin ain't cheap.

 

Aluminum residential wire gets brittle with time and lets go to short out to possibly cause a fire in the boxes. If aluminum wire fails in fixed residential applications then riding around and vibrating in a vehicle would definitely be of concern. The wire may not cause a fire but definitely could become a reliability issue.

 

They can hear it but you won’t continue to hear it for long.
Or maybe they can hear it because you already can barely hear it and have it cranked so you can.

 

Amazon would never be my choice for something like that wiring kit.
For that price I can almost guarantee it’s good looking junk.

I ordered a 9+3 wiring kit from Rebel wire in the US and I was even able to call Jeremy and tell him the components I was using and he custom made the harness to suit them and added some extra wire length to a couple of circuits.
Good quality copper wire and the circuits are printed at intervals along their length as well as the color coding.

After that I was able to contact him with any small technical question either in a phone call or in the Rebel wire thread right here on the HAMB.

You can’t get that type of service from Amazon with their Chinese garbage.

 

I bought a headlight relay kit from Amazon once. It advertised 10 gauge wire. The insulation was 10 gauge size, but the actual wire inside was about 14 gauge

 

Oh it obviously Chinese and junk, but the wire works just fine. That's all I want. I don't pay big money for shit just because it has somebody's name on the package. You obviously don't read much of what I do lol.

 

Yeah I've seen a lot of that shit. Even at the vendor booths at car shows. It's not awg, there's another term for it. I've bought a metric cunt ton of car parts from Amazon, and most of them are from Jeg's or speedway. Not like Amazon builds the shit.

 

Heretic.

 

Aluminum wire is used on boats.
Copper reacts with the aluminum hull especially in salt water applications. I have a roll of tin coated aluminum that I bought to rewire a 17' riveted aluminum. I found a penny under the floorboards that was actually trying to burn a hole through the hull.

 

Well I learned the phrase "cunt ton" today so thats cool.

 

I’m up with what you do and your upholstery wife too however supporting a fellow who does his best to sell a quality product Made IN THE USA for a very reasonable price like what Rebel wire does is something that I think someone like you would be willing to support.

There’s a cost to supporting Amazon and Bezos lifestyle.
Seems like you’re willing to pay that price.

 

I would not use aluminum wire any place unless it was all that I had.

Some examples one humorous, one not so much.

In the mid to late '70s I was working on a structural welding job (actually some bolting) because I wanted to earn money and be able to say "I done that." We had some aluminum whips on the job, they were about 15' long and way lighter than the copper counterparts. The joke was to give one to a new guy and tell him that all the real welders used them. You would strike an arc and the whip would shrink up. If you were not ready for it when you struck an arc it would either snatch the stinger out of your hand or jerk you off the iron or ladder.

Now the not so funny, according to Federal Statue is is not legal to sell a house trailer that was made in the '70s. Why you may ask? Aluminum wire and the fire hazard that it creates. There are ways around the statute and I doubt that it is really enforced but it is there and there for a reason.

 

I unknowingly bought some of the copper clad wire from Amazon to keep in stock for when I need a certain gauge piece of wire. Once I got it and looked more closely at the specs I returned it and ordered some actual copper wire to keep in stock. The price difference wasn't all that much more. As far as actual wiring kits go, I'm on my second Rebel 9+3 kit and for the quality and price it was a no brainer. The tech support is an added plus.

 

In the early 2000’s I helped a buddy redo a kitchen/dining area in a house that was originally built in the late 30’s/early 40’s. We pulled the drywall down and that was my introduction to “knob and tube” wiring. All done in Aluminum. Every insulator had charred marks on it, and in many places the wood was charred as well.
We pulled it all out and redid it with Romex. It was all 14 gauge (as I recall) Aluminum. May have been 16 as it’s been awhile.

 

I've had copper clad aluminum light gauge wire for making electronic projects; all good and well until you strip the copper off and it won't solder for toffee.

Same goes for car wiring; once it's crimped in place you end up with dissimilar metal corrosion, sped up by the fact that at least some of it is permanent connected to the + side of the battery.
Theoretically the crimp should cold weld the metals together, but.. that's in theory. Most hand tools in the average home mechanic's toolbox won't crimp the wire right.

 

And just like that the conversation went in the toilet !

 

My amplifiers have microprocessors, too!

 

Lloyd - how many feet, what gauge and what color wire do you need? I was given a couple of big boxes of new rolls of copper strand wire from a guy that was cleaning out his garage. I may be able to hook you up for just the cost of shipping.

 

Amazing that this thing, that is not a thing, is a thing.

https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/w...e Copper is,resemble that of elemental copper.

 

I've got to start out by saying that I've never installed a chassis wiring kit like this in anything.

That being said, when I saw the kit posted earlier in this thread the first thing that struck me was the suspiciously low $32 price. I wouldn't give this kit a second look and would gladly spend more money for a better quality kit.

Using this $32 kit probably isn't going to kill anybody. It may not even burn your car down. But it strikes me as something that might require "improvements" to be made during installation. Or be the source of some hair-pulling frustrations in the future.

But what do I know.

 

In all fairness, not all of that can be blamed on the wire. The connection failures were definitely caused by the aluminum wire, but the cheap Zinsco breaker panels also favored by many of the manufacturers would fail to trip and that was what usually started the fire as they were particularly poor at clearing that kind of fault. The inside joke was their 20 amp breaker was protected by the #12 wire. Zinsco went belly-up shortly after all this came to light. And a heads-up if you still have one: any new replacement breakers you can find today are off-shore built and DO NOT have UL approval, which may cause issues if it catches fire and if the insurance company finds out they can void your insurance. There used to be a thriving market in used OEM Zinsco breakers because of this. They're easy to spot if the label is gone, they were the only manufacturer who color-coded their breakers (red, blue, green, yellow, etc) by size.

And they weren't used only in trailers. They were the only 'modern' circuit-breaker style panel that I ever saw replaced because of panel failure, usually one of the internal busses would burn up, even if copper had been used for the branch circuits. I replaced more than few over the years...

 

Funny....I'm wiring up a commercial building today....with Aluminum wire.

6awg being the smallest Aluminum wire allowed, I'm putting in welder receptacles, feeding panels with 2awg Aluminum on 90amp breakers.... Fed the service with 250MCM Aluminum.

Oh wait this is about Hot Rods..

Aluminum wire has its place, and that is not in a vehicle. I use fine stranded tinned copper 14awg for most automotive wireing with XHHW insulation. Excellent high temp and flexibility. I like to use gray, then use a sharpie to make a stripe or color it at the ends. Then I don't need a zillion different colors of wire....just a zillion markers.

 

The tinned copper wire that Fabuolous50's mentioned is marine grade wire. I've bought it from boat supply houses but like everything else it can usually be found on Amazon through outside vendors.

As far as buying from or Through Amazon I ordered a gasket set for my Cad 500 last week though them that is coming from some performance shop in Ohio.

 

I'm good man, I got it handled, but I appreciate the hell out of ya!

 

Nothing but the best for my car....... So where can I get gold plated copper wire? .......Or copper wire with the oxygen removed and replaced with gold? If you have gold wire, what do you plate it with? What did NASA use for those shuttles? ......And what did the gub'mint use in nuclear submarines, missile silos, and ICBMs?
I want some of that.

 

Inevitably you'll find the absolute expert on this board, claimed at least, however the reason i've been told was that alum. wire was banned/unspecified because of its corrosive properties when installed over long periods. In corrosive environments, like salt air, etc. it really goes to town, resulting in fire potential, shorts, etc. Long periods would be multi years like in a house where there are many terminations. A car i'm not so sure, although i doubt i'd use it. BTW, check your power lines, all uninsulated and aluminum.

 

Wizard good luck with that, cost over runs would bankrupt you