Positive Battery Cables

[chrisinkanata]

Ok, here's an interesting thing! I've had my '02 D/max since new. Three sets of batteries now, with the most current being in August 2010. Over the years, there has been a relatively constant stream of different minor electrical issues in terms of starting, charging, dead batteries out of the blue, occaisional fluctuations of the voltmeter...? All very weird but you sort of learn to live with it. When it started to get cold here, it seemed the truck was inordinately hard to start, longer/slower crank time. Do some checking, find that the negative terminal on the LF battery is stripped and sort just pushed in. (It had been replaced at a dealer in the middle of an August holiday trip). So I swear and curse, replace the terminal - all good. Not so fast! Gets colder now and it's even harder to start. Go out on Sat morning, both batteries totally dead - no lights left on, alternator diodes ok. Weird thing - barely even turns over when boosted. So, disconnect the batteries to charge them. The postive cable to the R battery falls to the ground under the truck when loosened! It's completely corroded about two feet from the terminal. The other 'hot' end, is wedged up against the RF frame rail under the lower rad hose.

The insulation on it must have been pinched years ago. A number of years ago I had a problem with overcharging batteries (several posts here) and checked all the cables then. 'Looked' fine at that time. In hindsight, it must have been nicked/exposed then and I missed it. I've never done any work in that area nor had an accident, so I'd have to say it's taken this long to completely corrode the wire. Intermitent short to ground at the frame rail (bumps, rough road) and when the wire acutally broke, the hot end came to rest against the frame.

Explains a lot! Hopefully, this will solve some long standing issues.

Chris

[More Power]

Good info!

Some batts fail early in their life due to heat - especially those living in the SW U.S., while those owners living in cooler states generally have better luck with their truck's batteries. My 2001 still has the original 10-year old Delco maintenance-free batteries, and the truck started fine the other day after sitting all night at about 0 degrees F. This is in Montana...

Maintenance-free batts usually cause less acid corrosion on battery trays and cables, and no need to top off with distilled water over time. Unless there's a problem with the battery (crack or broken terminal lug that causes a leak), a maintenance-free batt shouldn't cause a corrosion problem with cables. I don't think I've had the cables off my '01's batteries yet...

Jim

[chrisinkanata]

Finally got the new positive cable installed a couple of days ago. My buddy at the GM dealer parts dept tells me they've never sold one, there were none in Canada and the part had to come from California. So it must be a total one off. -20c here two nights ago and purposely left the truck unplugged....started like new in the morning - sounds like a bag of hammers for a minute or so but started right up. Hopefully I've fixed some long standing issues.

Chris