Last week I purchased a 1984 2wd x-cab truck. Really clean body---needs interior work though--low miles on it (162k). Anyways I noticed the neg batt cable (still factory) is about 5'' long and goes straight to the inner fender and is only about a 6 ga wire. Another ground at the bottom of the fender then goes to the block. Back of the engine ground goes to the firewall. So the starter gets its main ground from the sheet metal of the inner fender??? It starts no problem, but I think it might get a better kick to the starter if I do a different cable with a couple of pigtails for the sheet metal. Any input??

 

Connect a large cable from batt neg to the engine block before you melt something.
Your truck had one such once upon a time.

 

That's what I suspected, but there is no indication of that as the existing cables are OE from 1984. That's what's puzzling. If it ever stops raining, I'll get a pic before I make a cable that makes more sense. Another oddity is that the truck will start in gear as in---no clutch switch and no provision for one. I found out that it was not required until 1985

 

That small ground to the fender is stock, as you say, but there should be a larger one to the block, as well.

 

The one to the block comes off the bottom of the fender, so theoretically I'm starting the truck through the sheet metal.

 

From my understanding, it is not unheard of for the older trucks to only have the one ground connection from the battery to the inner fender well from the factory. It is not a great design choice and Toyota changed the grounding to include a separate cable that connects to the front of the engine block.

 

Well that verifies what I'm looking at with this truck. I'll be changing it out soon after the sun cracks out for a couple of days. Then it'll be a new timing chain, battery cables and an oil change.