Battery Terminal Corrosion

I did pick up new connectors along w/ those felt rings. I figure anything will help from here on out. I'll cut the cable back a little bit if theres enough play in it, clean up the battery real well and see what happens. If it comes back sooner than later, I'll just go ahead and replace the battery. I dont know if the battery is the original one or not, so replacing it before the fall/winter is probably a good idea anyway.

 

Felt washers have always worked for me.

 

I use dilectric grease on mine.

 

ahh, much better .. . .. .. ..

 

Those terminals are sad sad shape man. You should never let them get that bad and as you said you discovered why. I'd be pitting some banking powder on that. If you overfill the battery that would cause that. Grease or Penitrox something, anything to keep the air off will prevent that.

You forgot that little useless rubber boot on the positive side terminal. You might want to find one and stick it on or someday you may discover why it's suppose to be there in the first place.

 

and you're done

 

Now cover the terminals with vaseline. This will keep that from happening again.

 

Glue a couple of pennies on the top of the battery. Problem solved.

 

Wait, you are suppousted to grease the battery terminals?
What does that do?

 

I've found the vaseline melts to easy, thats why I use dilectric grease.

 

Here are some before and after pics of the same kind of corrosion on my 07 Prerunner. Story is I had a little corrosion on there, came back from deployment and it was horrible. I was really concerned. Went to my local dealer (who are shitheads, story at the end of the post, for those who are interested) to have charging system checked. I was concerned that my alternator was not functioning well or that I had a bad ground somewhere. Ended up at Advanced Auto locally here in New Bern NC and they were AWESOME! Checked my battery and charging system, found no problems except for low starter amps, possibly from a loose wire or corrosion. I have always had good luck with Advance Auto in the past, and they continue to do good things for me. Saved me having to buy a new battery, cables, alternator, whatever else the dealer would have tried to sell me.

From Advance bought for less than $5:
CRC Battery terminal cleaner (yellow stuff that neutralizes acid and turns red on contact with acid)
Felt terminal washers
Counterman's Battery Grease (purple package of dielectric grease, made by Permatex)

Before:


After cleaning and with grease applied:

You can see on this pic too that I cleaned most of the rust off of the hold down threaded rod as well. Figured it was better to do it now that let it get so rusty that I break the bracket bolt the next time I have to change the battery.




Not that its that interesting if you don't live in the area, but I recommend not taking your vehicle to Toyota of New Bern (NC) for service. While I was on deployment, they gave my wife grief (treated her as if she was stupid because surely a woman doesnt know anything about cars) over an oil change and a u-joint replacement. I went to them for advice to make sure that this was just normal battery corrosion and not some other problem with the electrical system. First I pull up and the service desk employee says that he can't help me because he is going to lunch. I give him my best "Are you retarded?" stare and tell him he needs to look under the hood with me anyway. He does and tries to convince me that with a mere glance he can tell that there is nothing wrong with my charging system, the corrosion is "normal". Then offers me an appointment for sometime a week from now to have a $25 battery service done on the vehicle. And then he was already trying to talk me into a new battery.

This may seem like a minor issue, but its an ongoing saga of me having problems with this dealership. I am still committed to Toyota, but I bought my truck from here, was not happy with the experience, and have not been happy with the service experience since then. I won't be doing business with them in the future. Recommend if you live in the New Bern, NC area that you do the same and go elsewhere.

 

Great advice. Cleaned by battery terminals today while replacing my O2 Sensor. Party cup with water and baking soda worked great after removing battery. Headed to store tomorrow to get some felt washers and grease. Bad/good thing is once I started cleaning the battery area when I pulled to battery out I could not stop cleaning.

 

IMHO, it is extremely important to have a very low resistance and voltage loss between the battery terminal and terminal lug because of the high current that is required when starting the engine and to prevent undercharging the battery. This also applies to the ground connections. Coating battery terminals with Vaseline will not work, because it will melt with the high underhood temperatures. High temperature grease or spray works much better. Using Coca-Cola will clean the terminals, but Diet-Coke works better because it does not have sugar.

 

Now that you changed it and cleaned it up, coat it with Fluid Film.

 

Appreciate the advice. Will do, thanks. Happy I was able to maneuver around the heat shield, watched a video where a guy cut it off. Cleaned up the area with dremel wire wheel, applied anti-seize, and replaced with stainless steel locking nuts. A little prevention and it will never need to be changed again. $52 for the Denso part on Amazon opposed to dealer for $165 not to mention what labor would have been.

 

Battery heat shields reduces premature battery failures especially in hot climates. Heat kills batteries by causing premature grid corrosion and loss of water in wet batteries and decrease pressure and thermal runaway in flat plate AGM batteries.