Date:         Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:42:42 +0200
Reply-To:     Janne Ruohomäki <janne.ruohomaki@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Janne Ruohomäki <janne.ruohomaki@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Cause of the white corrosion deposit around a battery?
Comments: To: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@hiwaay.net>
In-Reply-To:  <074401cac596$8f85d740$ae9185c0$@net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 7:56 AM, Tom Hargrave <thargrav@hiwaay.net> wrote:
> Some people put grease on the terminals. Grease will also work but you need
> to make sure to cover the entire terminal, even the bottom edge of the
> clamp. If you don't then any exposed metal will corrode.

 If You use grease, dont overdo it and make sure You really have good
contact. Too much grease AND a bad contact might be fire hazard in a
connection on fat wire with lots of amps going through. I use grease
myself in almost all electrical contacts in my van (and every other
vehicle), but I always feel a little voice in my head asking me "what
if this heats up?". I have seen melted battery connectors and the way
the lead is deformed on those means that the amount of heat has been
very high and there have been several hot spots where temperature has
exceeded melting point of lead by a great margin.

I think there are special greases for this that have very high flash
point temperatures (autoignition temperatures don't count if there's a
spark).  Generally I put only the best stuff in my van, but here I
have been using just normal synthetic spray grease. Which by the way
probably contains some quite volatile components also so that it might
be quite flammable for a while after being squirted from the can.