On Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 2:00:53 AM UTC-4, Hugh Byrne wrote:
Today the car wouldn't start at a friend's house who had no jumper cables..
He had some electrical wire though.
We were just starting to jury rig something when his wife showed up with
cables in her trunk.

If we did jury rig electrical wires, we were unsure of what size would
work.

How can we determine what size electrical wire would work to jump a typical
sedan in an emergency?

This was almost 50 years ago, but I jump started a 225 slant six in a 1970 Plymouth Gold Duster by parking my car with the chrome bumpers touching, and some aluminum clothes wire. Luckily, I was wearing heavy gloves, because it started to droop from overheating, but it did let a coworker start his car after work. My car was a 1963 Pontiac Catalina, with the largest battery that would fit into the holder. It was below zero outside, so we didn't want to stand there in a high wind, waiting to charge it from my car.