Pretty self explanatory title. I replaced my rusted, cracked, twisted factory 6-gauge battery cables with some new 2-gauge ones from AutoZone. Nothing fancy, just wanted to clean it up and have it all work.
So, uh, I did that. And now the car won't start, and the battery doesn't even seem to have any juice in it - normally SOMETHING happens if I leave the positive terminal on the post and remove/replace the negative, but nothing's happening. No interior lights are coming on, no nothing.
I can't figure it out.
I double checked and triple checked all the connections. It's all wired up correctly and all the connections are secure. There's still power in the starter (trust me :unamused:) and everything is securely grounded. I mean, it's like my battery went dead in the course of a few hours.

Here's the only other two things I think it could potentially be.
1. The factory ring terminal on the starter wasn't so much a ring terminal shape as it was kind of a -( O )- shape. It was a ring terminal with two little "arms" for lack of a better word. The ring terminal on the new battery is just a standard ring terminal.
2. I replaced the wire to the fusible link (going into the fusebox), which I inadvertently clipped too short and used a slightly smaller gauge of wire - I went from 8g to 10g. However, I don't see this being a big enough difference to cause the car not to start and/or act like the battery is completely dead.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm really stumped. :(

Thanks in advance!

In the future you should really do what you can to pinpoint the problem before you start changing things. But how do you know the battery is dead? I would apply a voltmeter to the two terminals and see how much voltage you are reading. From there you can take the next step.

Check the main fuse in the panel under the hood and make sure it is ok. If that is good then at least get a test light probe so you can see where power is getting to. Also verify you have a good ground connection to the engine and chassis.

Wirelessly posted (Phallic Tractor: BlackBerry9530/4.7.0.148 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Which is the main fuse?
And I don't know the battery is dead. The car is just displaying symptoms of a dead battery.

Ended up being a dead battery. Jump start and it popped back to life. No problems in the past three hours or so. :)

Glad you figured it out. I had a similar issue when i installed a battery terminal i bought off of ebay for an amp install. The car wouldn't start, and it was due to the coating on the terminal, it was not conductive enough to power the car, but just conductive enough to make a multimeter register voltage in some spots. I tried wire brushing the coating off, and ended up just throwing it away. Just posting it as a late suggestion, and to maybe relieve someone else's issue down the road.