[tsl90]

Changed my oil today. The blue crystals all over my + battery connector bother me so I went at 'em with a wire brush as usual. The corrosion was so bad the connector broke quickly. I got a cheap cable from Pep boys and rigged it back together.

I looked at my wife's 4runner and despite being 2yr older there isn't any corrosion on her terminal. The Tacoma connector was brass. The 4runner connector is shaped exactly the same but is made out of another metal. I'm going to try and replace mine with the 4runner part for the definitive fix.

I'm assuming the blue crystals are copper sulfate penta hydrate. They look like the same stuff from my college Chemistry lab.

Anyone else have an early (3-4yr) problem with this?

TL

 

[surfsupl]

Nope! Not me,but I hear MtDew is one hell of a batt terminal cleaner.

 

[HotRod53]

I just had to clean mine about two weeks ago at 87K. The terminals that Toyota uses looks like something out my childhood erector set. If you changed yours with a "cheap" one from Pep Boys, that's probably what you got was a cheap one. Personally I don't use anything that isn't a quality cable with a molded end. And those clamp-on things are a P.O.S. I would keep an eye on it, nothing is worth getting stranded over. Of course even a cheap one will work for a while.

They used to make a battery terminal spray that was a clear magic spray, I don't know if they still make it but it used to work. Clean your terminals with baking soda and water after a good wire brushing. Don't do it on your concrete driveway, it will give you orange streaks.

 

[tsl90]

I've always heard Coke, but I'll bet any soda pop (soda being the important thing) would work.

Mine was obviously so corroded that I can't say how well it was made. Now it is an amorphous mass of thin, broken pieces of copper, some copper bolts and blue crystals - all completely inseparable.

I wish I had taken a pic and compared it to the 4runner. The 4runner is pristine. If I can get the same part I don't think I'll have to worry about cleaning in the future.

I hope to get things resolved this week. I'm betting what I've pieced together will hold up that long. There are probably millions of cars on the road with worse connections than that so I'll bet it'll do until I get it done right.

The more I think about it the more I think I'm lucky I found this today. Otherwise sometime in the next year or so it would have started to fail on it's own and it would have been even more inconvenient.

TL

 

[briangp]

Coke no, Mt Dew no.... Don't use these products. They contain alot of sugar, and if you don't clean it up REALLY well once you're done, you're just asking for more trouble.

Just get a new terminal and spray a 'corrosion-preventative compound' or CPC as well call it. Of course we have MIL specs on our stuff at work, but we use 81309 and in fact, the exact stuff can be found on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-14OZ-SO-SURE-...0?hash=item5188d5872f&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116

Use this, and trust me. This kinda stuff is my line of work


Justify the price by using it on ALL of your connectors in your vehicle that are subject to the elements. Just spray the outside of the connectors.

 

[el_smurfo]

Actually, I think it's the citric acid that's the thing...

 

[briangp]

I forget exactly what it is that makes coke dissolve metals, but if you don't 'treat' the connector, the corrosion is just going to come back over time.

If you want to go cheap with it... you could probably just use regular old oil. Oil is the cheapest solution for preservation.