battery cable problem
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 52
battery cable problem
yesterday my car wouldn't start out of nowhere. i lifted the hood and my battery cable was completely covered in acid. i sprayed some stuff my dad has on it to get the acid off and it started after a few minutes. do ya'll think i need to replace the battery cables or just clean them real well. i'm on a house next week and don't need the extra expenses right now.
Clean it all well with a wire brush and see what happens. Remember to apply some grease to all contacts so that it doesn't oxidize again. If you want to be fancy, they have special battery connector compound at PepBoys, AutoZone, Strauss etc for like a dollor a pouch. One is plenty and a half.
I had a problem w/corrosion on my battery terminals; it looked like a handfull of hardened white crap completely covering the terminals.
I made a baking soda paste and applied it to the posts-making sure not to get any in the battery (it's capped, but it's always a good idea to keep the solution away from the caps). The crap came right off & it looked like someone just puked around the battery. Next, I used a battery terminal scraper (Scotchbrite pads will work too) to clean the terminals, then re-connected the cables. Lastly, I applied Vasiline to the terminals to prevent it from happening again.
It's been over a year now & no corrosion.
Good luck.
I made a baking soda paste and applied it to the posts-making sure not to get any in the battery (it's capped, but it's always a good idea to keep the solution away from the caps). The crap came right off & it looked like someone just puked around the battery. Next, I used a battery terminal scraper (Scotchbrite pads will work too) to clean the terminals, then re-connected the cables. Lastly, I applied Vasiline to the terminals to prevent it from happening again.
It's been over a year now & no corrosion.
Good luck.
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 8,143
From: a meadow south of Atlanta
This has been a bad summer for batteries. Here south of Atlanta the auto parts stores are selling them fast. The Atlanta Airport lies by quoting the high for the day as just under 100 degrees several times a week (I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce pays them to do this), but all three of my neighbor's thermometers (all in the shade) have been over 100 for ten straight days. The Airport does admit that we have broken the all-time high for the date three times within the past week. It has been a horrible summer here.
I quoted the temps of my neighbor's thermometers because my wife and I spent the last week in the mountains of NC and GA, and did lots of low speed climbing of steep grades looking for our perfect mountaintop retirement home. We absolutely cooked the battery in our '04 SL. We ended up stranded on a blistering tarmac with the battery so dead we couldn't even open the windows. When we parked the car about ten minutes earlier, the temp was 102.
The last thirty years have been well above average in temperature here. To have a temperate climate, we may have to find our retirement home in Nova Scotia. Or even Alaska.
I quoted the temps of my neighbor's thermometers because my wife and I spent the last week in the mountains of NC and GA, and did lots of low speed climbing of steep grades looking for our perfect mountaintop retirement home. We absolutely cooked the battery in our '04 SL. We ended up stranded on a blistering tarmac with the battery so dead we couldn't even open the windows. When we parked the car about ten minutes earlier, the temp was 102.
The last thirty years have been well above average in temperature here. To have a temperate climate, we may have to find our retirement home in Nova Scotia. Or even Alaska.
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