Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

[pbolden]

Hello everyone,

Unintended consequences can be a (you know what). So its better to ask. I can clean my battery posts and cables much better using a battery powered drill and an engine brush kit like the one below. The battery compartment is about 4' away from the ob. Are there any safety or technical reasons why I wouldn't want to do this?

Thanks,
Paul Bolden

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

You can, but plain old sand paper and 10 minutes works fine, and put a bit of noalox on it when your done to keep the oxidation slowed down. Its like 3.00 a tube at the big box stores and it last forever.

Noalox Anti-Oxidant Compound

 

[Bondo]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

Ayuh,.... If yer battery connections are Soooooo Bad that ya need a power tool to clean 'em,....

They really need to be Replaced,.....

'n,.... I use Grease on mine, after they're cleaned,... Nothin' fancy, just slathered with plain ole gun grease,...

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

A Battery Terminal Brush and About 10 seconds of elbow grease followed by regular grease is all you really need.


The Post and Terminals or not hard steel, they are soft lead.
Power brushing them risks removing enough material that the Terminals may no longer clamp down on the post after you are finished.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

I wouldn't use a power brush as the terminals are lead and breathing in lead dust is bad for you

 

[pbolden]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

Thanks guys for all the tips. As a FYI, here was the situation. My boat had been in cold storage over the winter. Last fall I told the marina that I wanted to replace the batteries with new ones prior to spring launch.

They did replaced the batteries but I don't know when because when I got the boat back to my dock I noticed that one of the batteries negative terminals was heavily corroded. I used the standard clean tools like the terminal brush shown by UncleWillie and west marine's corrosion cleaner and cleaned the terminals several times but was not able to remove all of the corrosion from the cables manually. This is why I was asking about the engine brush kit.

Again, thanks everyone for the helpful and considered suggestions.

Paul Bolden

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

You are never going to get the Battery Clamps to look nice and Shiny like the posts on the new battery.
If you remove the Clamps from the Battery, and soak them in a glass of water with some Baking Soda in it,
all the Corrosion Products that matter will dissolve in a few seconds/minutes.

Beyond that, it is just a cosmetic issue.

 

[foodfisher]

Re: Silly battery mantainence question? Please humor me...

Corroded cables=not good. If there's enough length, strip the insulation back to clean wire, cut and reinstall. Not enough length= get ready to replace.