Corrosion:Watch Out!

SON240sx Automotive
1

Well for about 2 weeks now when i go to start my car, when i turn the key it would begin to start, then pause for a split second, then starts.

Due to the cold weather we’ve been having, i thought it would be because of that, that the car is harder to start. But i was wrong. Today i came home and parked up as usual, then rememberd i had to move my car to install a strutbar i bought today, when i go to start it, it didnt start.

what exactly happend was

  1. turned the key to start then a loud * CLICK * sound comes from in the engine bay
  2. all lights came on for split second then came off
  3. took the key out, tried again but this time there was no lights, nothing was working in the car.

So at this point i knew it had to be something with the battery cuz no lights were working or anything, so i lift up my hood to inspect, i didnt see anything wrong. So i just sort of hit and wiggled the battery wires, and tried to start again then the same thing would happen. * CLICK * no start…

then i thought it could be the green stuff built up on the batt. terminals, i duno i think its calcium??? lol i duno.

anywayz so i go to clean the negative wire and it comes out in my hand!!!

it was totally EATEN away from corrosion, cut off right from behind the right headlight underneath the bar which the light’s mounted on.

so i think everyone should watch out for this prob. check right in front of the battery on your 240’s, where the negative wire is coming from inside your engine bay, to where it is connected to the wire that goes to the battery terminal to see if its eating away.

2

on any reasonably old car the first thing you should do is add ground straps for everything to everything else, get a grounding kit if you feel like paying 4x the price for less work

I’ve swapped fusible links, battery cables, alternator harnesses etc from different kinds of cars, it’s not hard, the principles are the same for all vehicles

when the copper goes black the thin plastic coating they added is decaying, shortly after that it starts going green, green copper doesn’t conduct electricity well :slight_smile:

3

thanks for the info, well im cheap so ive just cut and attatched back the wires together with a bigger ground clamp to the existing hole and seems to be working fine, the only thing is that some of the wire is still showing so its obviously obvious that the corrosion will happen again.