A battery cable gets hot when the conductor inside the cable is carrying more amperage than the conductor can radiate away as heat. BTW, "current" and "amperage" are words that mean exactly the same thing. I don't know why we have two words for the same thing, both mean the QUANTITY of electricity that is being moved through the cable - just like voltage means the INTENSITY of the electricity. Because large cables are physicaly bigger, larger cables can radiate more heat and so they can carry more amperage without overheating.
For the L275, we can assume it worked fine and didn't overheat the cable before, so something new is causing the battery cable to carry more amperage than it should. It could either be that the cable itself is corroded inside the insulation so that there is actually less copper cable in there than there once was. In that case, the whole current or amperage to the starter is actually flowing through a smaller wire. I've seen that. Gets hot fast.
The best way I know of to check for cable corrosion is to split the cable insulation longwise for a few inches back from the battery and see if there is a lot of corrosion among the wire strands. If not, you can just tape the insulation back into place and no harm done. BUT, if there is a lot of white and green powder in there, then that powder used to be copper wire and the battery cable needs replacing.
BTW, cable corrosion happens with the old "wet cell" type lead/acid batteries with the water caps. It doesn't happen at all with newer AGM type lead/acid batteries.
If the cable looks good, then the only thing left is that the starter itself is drawing more current or amperage. In that case, the starter is probably getting hot too, and it won't last long. The cure for that is either rebuild the starter or replace it.
Best of luck,
rScotty
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