Suspected bad connection causing low recharging rate and erratic engine cranking; so proceeded to clean all connections on the battery terminals and the terminal block mounted on the frame bracket (attached photo). However, cannot remove the 9/16" nut on either neg or pos terminal block as it rotates on the axle axis but will not back out. Suggestions?
Turning the nut hard enough causes the bolt head that is embedded in the plastic stand-off to rotate freely. I removed the negative cable leads by drilling out the stand-off from the stanchion. Then I could put a wrench a wrench on both the nut and bolt head. Rather than replacing the negative stand-off with a new one, I cleaned up the area and re-attached all the negative leads directly to the stanchion.
In my case just cleaning the negative cable ends at battery, the stanchion, the starter, and the engine proved to make a significant difference so I left the positive ends alone.
Note the negative cable nut at the starter and the positive cable end at the starter solenoid may be very difficult to remove so be cautious to avoid damaging the starter.
If you need new mounting block/stud terminal block assemblies they can be had at local marine supply stores.
You may want to put a little grease on those terminals when you're done, it really keeps that connection from getting in that condition. Thanks and have a great day ---- Fritz
I got replacements (both pos and neg blocks) from Foretravel Parts. All the nuts on the old ones were frozen. Like Fritz said, use grease (I used OxGard on the connections and antiseize compound on the threads.)
With to days heavy rain, I had an employee (the one I trust), disconnect the chassis batteries, found the same issue with poor connection on both pos & neg blocks, during redoing, the stud broke on both, so FOT is UPS to us, $15.00 each. Been wondering about em, now we know :o
Will go back with new including dielectric & antiseize.
Always have said and will continue to say "dielectric grease is your best friend". Silicone grease (available in the plumbing section of your favorite hardware or big box home builders) is also very good for rubber gasket applications.
Dielectric grease is good stuff in the right applications such as high current bolted connections. I'd strongly caution against using it on the pins of signal level connections, low current connections, and switches or relays. It is an insulator, and needs tight contact and current to "force" through the film of grease. In these cases a conductant might be more appropriate.
Rainy day so, we got into the battery cable issue for the chassis, cleaned up all the connections, mounted both new cable stand offs (FOT), using all new Cap Nuts 8, for both mounts and the 3 new Grp 31 Johnson Control Batteries (Free), and using the new cap nuts, rewire the 5 Amp Battery Tender wires, all works great.
Starting was becoming a bit of a labor feeling, found 1 batt was at 60CCA, 2 at 650CCA, way down, but they were 5 years old, so no gripe from me. Yes love free new batteries.
The big surprise: Had to turn the voltage Regulator down, before the above work, had it set for 13.85 VDC, after the new work, it went up to 14.4 VDC, so turned the regulator back to the 13.89 VDC area.
The only other surprise, the dash light bulb for the Ether Start came on, first time I ever saw that one.
Should some type of conductive grease be used on the terminals , if so , any recommendations ?
Used Antiseize lightly on the 8 5/16 studs, no need to wring them off again.