[mr48chev]

Good clean bare contact areas for ground cables is a must. I've gone out and checked on a couple of won't crank good situations on freshly assembled rigs where the owner had so may coats of paint on the engine or frame under the ground strap that there was little or no electrical contact. One actually had a fit when I scraped away the paint under the ground cable on his engine that must have had six coats of paint on it to get to bare metal to get a ground.

Cable size, think of an electrical cable in the same respect as a water hose and voltage in the same respect as water pressure with amps equaling water flow at the end of the hose.

You are only going to get so much flow though a certain size hose as the hose allows. Same with a wire or cable the wire or cable will only carry the amps it is sized for.

I had trouble with my 77 Dualie because a previous owner had put the smallest diameter battery cables available in that length on it and they just didn't have the capacity to crank a 454 when it was hot and the starter was hot. Parts house actually had the larger cables they just cost more.

I agree that you can't have too many ground connections between major pieces on the truck though. Depending on how your setup is Ground cable to either frame or engine block, strap between frame and block, strap to cab and strap to the bed to ground lights that are grounded to the bed/box.

Old school woven straps or short proper gauge cables with ends is up to individual taste.

When I worked in the Pontiac Dealership in Waco Tx in the mid 70's we would get a lot of Grand Prix and Lemans in with the floor shift cable for the automatic frozen up. Invariably someone had replaced valve cover gaskets or valve covers and hadn't connected the ground straps from the firewall to the valve cover bolts back up. When they were left off the only ground for the body was the floor shift cable.